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Educational Equity in Romania
Definition
“Educational equity is the outcome of fundamental education laws and policies, guaranteeing a fair treatment and access to resources and programs for all students, as well as outreach for parental involvement”. (Washington State Human Rights Commission)
Standards
The standards system for educational equity comprises: the political frame, the educational environment, the pre-service and in-service teachers’ training, the teaching and assessment practices, the evaluation of personnel and curricular materials, the individualized educational planning, the allocation of financial resources, the standard based educational reform.
Political Frame
In Romania, education is national priority. Romanian citizen have equal access rights to all educational levels and forms, regardless their social or material condition, sex, race, nationality, political or religious beliefs. (Law on Education, 1995, 2005)
Educational Environment
The Romanian educational system focuses following main aspects: creating a national well-balanced educational net, changing the institutional bodies for the initial and further vocational training, decentralizing the system of managing and funding the public education, assuring education quality, implementing the governmental social programs as well as its strategy for rural education.
Teachers’ Training
Human resources for education are trained in public or private universities (4 – 6 years studies) and their compulsory continuous training takes place every 5 years, or on demand. There are 61 accredited teacher training providers.
Teaching and assessment practices
Romanian curricular policies and education contents aim to focus on students’ needs, to ensure the consistency of the curriculum with the society and labor market needs, to develop key competencies (set up by Lisbon Process - 2000), to harmonize Romanian and international education standards, to ensure the social relevance of the teaching-learning process.
The frame for the national curriculum comprises: the compulsory core curriculum, the compulsory, but differentiated curriculum, according to profiles and specializations, as well as the individualized school-based curriculum.
The Ministry of Education promotes active classroom practices, the implementation of a contextualized curriculum, the development of an authenticable students’ organizational culture, competence-based assessment practices and the real commitment in the counseling activity.
Evaluation of personnel and curricular materials
School personnel were usually evaluated on national specific standards, agreed with the representative trade unions. Romania recently adopted the Law on Quality, focused on the internal and external evaluation process at all levels, according to the reference standards.
Individualized Educational Planning
Ethnic minorities, students with special educational needs or disadvantaged groups benefit of individualized educational conditions: education in mother’s language, appropriate educational services and special national programs.
Allocation of financial resources
Since 2004, Romania is implementing the education decentralization process, meaning: the decentralizing of funds allocation, of the planning process and of the budget execution. Romanian Government is financing social programs and co-financing international programs.
Social programs: Students’ Transport, School Furniture and Teaching Material, School Supplies, food Supplement, EUR 200, Informatics Educational System. Beneficiary: about 25% of school population.
International programs: PHARE TVET (2001 - 2006), project for rural Education (2003 - 2009), Rehabilitation of School Buildings (2000 - 2009), Access to Education for Disadvantaged Groups (2004 - 2006), Education for Information in Rural Deprived Area (2002 – 2007).
Standard Based Educational Reform
In concordance with the European criteria, Romania set up specific evaluation standards, for the educational system, for the educational process and for the educational units. The National System of Education Indicators is compatible with all European indicators: expenditure for education, human resources, participation in education, internal efficiency of the system, students’ results and the results of education on labor market.
Romanian Education Ministry considers that a real reform of the education system is possible with the essential support of the economic frame.
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Ministry of Education of Chile
