Romania’s education reform agenda, launched in 2023, represents an ambitious attempt to modernise the system and improve quality and availability of education and training across all levels. Aimed at equipping learners with the skills needed to progress within the education and training system and the labour market, it seeks to foster more inclusive and sustainable growth. This chapter summarises key findings and recommendations from the report, focusing on where the country’s education and skills system stands in relation to OECD Members and peers in the Central and Eastern European region, and where evidence and policy examples from across the OECD can help Romania come closer to OECD benchmarks of quality, equity and good governance.
Education and Skills in Romania
Abstract
Romania’s current reform agenda, introduced in 2023, represents the country’s most ambitious attempt to modernise education since the post-democratic transition period. Backed by unprecedented levels of national and EU funding, new legislation aims to enhance the quality and availability of education and training across all levels. The goal is to equip learners with the skills they need to progress within the education system and contribute to the country's economic future.
Romania's push for education reform comes at a critical juncture. While poverty levels have fallen across all regions, and income inequality has narrowed, stark disparities remain. The prosperous Bucureşti-Ilfov region continues to pull ahead, leaving much of the rural population behind. More than half of Romanians in rural areas remain at risk of poverty and social exclusion. By equipping vulnerable populations with the skills needed for productive employment, Romania can work toward a more equitable and sustainable future—one where the fruits of economic progress are shared more broadly across society.
This report explores how Romania can learn from OECD evidence and experience to ensure the success of its ambitious reforms. It evaluates how Romania's education and skills policies align with those of OECD countries and provides recommendations for further alignment (see Box 1.1). This chapter outlines the key findings and recommendations from the review.
On 22 January 2022, the OECD Council invited Romania to open formal accession discussions. On 10 June 2022, the OECD Council adopted the Roadmap for the accession of Romania to the OECD Convention [C/MIN(2022)25/FINAL], setting out the terms, conditions and process for accession to the OECD. Under this roadmap, the EDPC has been requested to conduct an in-depth technical review of Romania in the area of education and skills. This report provides input to this process by evaluating national policies and practices in Romania compared to those of OECD countries. It does so according to five Accession Core Principles that are essential to effective education systems: a strong focus on improving learning outcomes; equity in educational opportunity; and good governance, in particular collecting and using data to inform policy; leveraging funding to steer reform; and engaging stakeholders in policy design and implementation. Drawing on OECD research and experience in the area of education and skills, the review examines the extent to which Romania’s policies and practices align with these core policy principles. It also provides recommendations on how Romania can improve policies and practices to advance the country towards OECD standards of education attainment and outcomes.
Romania is at a critical stage in its economic and social development. Once propelled by structural reforms, its economic growth has slowed in recent years, a familiar trend for nations as they move beyond middle-income status. To advance to higher levels of prosperity, Romania must embrace innovation and continue expanding more advanced, higher-value industries. Central to this transformation is an education system that equips all citizens with the skills to thrive in a modern economy.
In Romania, this requires not only retaining talent within the education system but also providing those who have dropped out of school with opportunities to develop the foundational skills needed for lifelong learning and productive employment. Ongoing reforms mobilise substantial national and EU investments to improve the quality and relevance of the education and skills system, with an emphasis on ensuring all students develop functional literacy –defined as the ability to locate, interpret, and use information to solve problems routinely faced in today’s world– as well as more advanced skills for the labour market. This review focuses on two reforms that will be central to this transformation. First is how to make a success of the planned changes to the model of teacher professional leadership. Here we look at how school leadership can be strengthened to enable the type of continuous, job-embedded support that research shows to be most effective in bedding down new approaches to teaching and learning. Second is how to design more flexible post-secondary pathways to meet the needs of both learners and the economy.
How does education quality in Romania compare to OECD benchmarks?
While a minority of Romanian students reach levels of excellence comparable to their peers in other European and OECD countries, many more leave school without mastering the basic competencies needed to participate fully in society. As Figure 1.1 shows, according to the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), only a minority of students are mastering basic competencies. While top performers achieve outcomes comparable to their peers in OECD countries, nearly four in ten young Romanian students score below basic competency levels in reading and science and five in ten in mathematics (OECD, 2023[1]). With weak foundations, a significant number of students – close to one in four – leaves school before completing upper secondary education, which most countries recognise as the minimum level of education necessary to participate fully in society. Poor learning outcomes are particularly evidenced in Romania’s smallest schools, which typically serve disadvantaged rural populations.
To improve learning outcomes, ongoing reforms are directing substantial investments into strengthening teacher preparation and continuous professional development through mentorship and collaboration. These initiatives hold great promise in enhancing teachers’ capacity to make informed decisions on curriculum delivery, classroom management, and assessment practices. However, further support is needed to develop school leaders as strong pedagogical leaders. In 2018, Romania’s principals identified a high priority for professional development in promoting collaboration among teachers, designing in-school professional development, and using data to drive school-wide improvements (OECD, 2019[2]).
Another challenge in Romania is the limited offer of diverse skills development pathways. These help individuals progressively and flexibly gain new qualifications from upper secondary education to tertiary education and adult learning. Vocational streams, which enrol most students in upper secondary education in Romania (57% in 2022), have historically provided students with few opportunities to pursue more applied programmes at the post-secondary and tertiary levels (OECD, 2022[3]). In 2018-2019, only 46% of students in a vocational upper secondary education stream passed the baccalaureate compared to 88% in the more prestigious academic track (Hâj and Ţucă, 2022[4]). A significant share of vocational students also disengages from their studies and drop out of school, with a dropout rate of 3.1% in 2020-2021, nearly double that of students in the academic stream (Hâj and Ţucă, 2022[4]; Ministry of Education of Romania, 2023[5]). This early disengagement generates long-lasting consequences for their employment prospects. Plans to introduce short-cycle and vocational tertiary pathways aim to offer realistic and aligned education opportunities for students coming from vocational and technical upper secondary education and potential alternative pathways to graduation for students who might otherwise drop out. While these plans are positive, there are signs that further policy development and supports will be required for their full implementation. There is also scope to provide more personalised upskilling and reskilling support to Romania's most vulnerable adults. Participation in skills-focused programmes is low, with the latest data showing Romania’s public expenditure on labour market training programmes was the second lowest in the EU in 2020 (Eurostat, 2020[6]).
Note: In Panel B empty diamonds show the change in mathematics performance is not statistically significant.
Source: OECD (2023[1]), PISA 2022 Results (Volume I): The State of Learning and Equity in Education, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/53f23881-en; OECD (2023[7]), PISA database 2022, https ://www.oecd.org/pisa/data/; OECD (2024[8]), Education at a Glance 2024: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/c00cad36-en.
What can Romania learn from OECD policy and practice to improve education quality?
Policy message 1: Continue with the planned transformation of how teachers are trained and supported
Romania recognises that raising educational outcomes begins with those who work most closely with children and students: teachers. The government has introduced ambitious reforms to modernise teaching. These include a shift in how teachers teach, with an integrated curriculum for early and pre-primary education, and a school curriculum that encourages more individualised, formative teaching practices and focuses on developing critical 21st-century skills. The changes also focus on how teachers are prepared and supported to grow professionally. A new bachelor’s in early education and a new master’s in teaching were introduced to provide more advanced qualifications, sending a valuable signal that teaching is a skilled profession. These new programmes also feature a practicum under the coordination of a mentor teacher, addressing previous shortcomings in initial teacher preparation, particularly the limited guidance and practice for developing pedagogical skills. To support practicing teachers, schools are expected to organise collaborative learning communities, and assign mentors to help individual teachers improve their practice. Mentorship and collaboration are amongst the most effective in-service training strategies to improve teaching. However, creating a collaborative culture in schools is no small feat, and requires a deep transformation in how teachers learn and work together (OECD, 2019[9]).
This review highlights two key considerations to help Romania progressively role out mentorship and collaboration. First, is to focus early implementation on the sectors and schools that stand to benefit the most from these efforts. Research across different contexts suggests it is generally difficult to identify, train and manage enough highly qualified mentors, making mentorship schemes more effective when delivered on a smaller scale (Boeskens, Nusche and Yurita, 2020[10]). In Romania, embedding these practices into daily routines will be particularly critical in the early stages of education when students build the foundations for learning and acquire basic competencies. This applies both to pre-primary and primary schools, especially small rural schools organised in clusters. Second, is to develop early childhood education and care (ECEC) and school leadership roles and practical resources to facilitate collaborative professional learning. Addressing structural factors like the competitive teacher merit-pay scheme, and high-stakes in-school teacher appraisal processes will be important to promote a school culture that welcomes critical peer-to-peer feedback. However, additional measures can help actively develop these new ways of working. Central to these efforts is ensuring that ECEC and school leaders are prepared to guide teacher learning and collaboration (see Policy message 2). This review also highlights practical resources that OECD countries, such as New Zealand and the United States, have developed to facilitate teamwork focused on improving pedagogy. These range from guidance to facilitate collaborative inquiry groups and manage teachers’ time, to resources that accompany the curricula and help teachers deliver competency-based teaching, formative assessment and stimulating activities for young children.
Policy message 2: Strengthen leadership to support pedagogical improvements within ECEC settings and schools and across school clusters
Reforms place a strong emphasis on improving pedagogical practice, particularly in areas that research shows are most effective for inclusive learning and where teachers in Romania need further development. For example, active learning strategies, differentiated instruction, and providing feedback to students. Building this capacity requires school leaders who foster peer-learning and collaboration, and who give teachers the support and space to apply these strategies in the classroom. In Romania, the current distribution of leadership responsibilities makes this difficult. Important tasks, like teacher in-school appraisals, curriculum implementation, and school self-evaluation and improvement planning are distributed across school commissions, often handed to staff who may lack the necessary expertise. Meanwhile, principals who are responsible for a school cluster including their own school and other satellite schools are not always prepared or supported to lead improvements across their clusters.
Quality improvements in Romania's least performing schools could be strengthened by developing a leadership model for school clusters. Around six out of ten schools, and eight out of ten ECEC settings, are part of a cluster, and satellite schools, which are often small rural schools, tend to face greater challenges in promoting quality teaching and learning (Ministry of Education of Romania, 2023[5]). This report highlights three key policies to help school leaders play a more prominent role in supporting good teaching. First, assigning school and ECEC leaders, rather than commissions, more direct responsibility for core pedagogical leadership tasks –such as in-school appraisals and professional development– would enable them to implement a more coherent, school-wide approach to pedagogical planning and quality improvement. Second, distributing leadership can also help leaders manage these new responsibilities and progressively build specialised expertise. For instance, formalising pedagogical leadership roles in areas such as special education, formative assessment, and professional development could help drive system-wide improvements and offer a more differentiated career path for staff motivated to take on new responsibilities. In ECEC settings attached to a larger school and supervised by the school principal, this could be advanced by giving current ECEC coordinators and experienced ECEC teachers greater responsibilities and training to lead professional development within their setting. Finally, Romania’s ongoing efforts to expand job-embedded mentorship and in-service training programmes for school and ECEC leaders are particularly promising and will be key to ensuring leaders develop the expertise needed for these tasks. This review provides examples from the OECD of mentorship schemes that support both individual principals and leadership teams, as well as professional development programmes for teachers aspiring to take on responsibilities in leading the development of peers in their school. It also highlights the value of expanding tailored induction and professional development programmes for nursery leaders with a focus on early childhood development, as the sector is growing and transitioning from being solely childcare-focused to a broader care and educational role.
None of this, however, can be achieved without addressing the administrative burden on schools and ECEC settings. According to the latest OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS), in 2018, 93% of Romania’s principals reported being frequently tied up by paperwork, the second-highest figure among all participating countries (OECD, 2019[2]). Plans to introduce an integrated education data management system may reduce the multiple, often duplicative data requests made to schools, but more significant efforts to reduce schools’ administrative burden will be essential if school leaders are to focus on pedagogical leadership and their own professional development.
Policy message 3: Better align post-secondary education and adult learning with the needs of individual learners and the economy
While this review underscores the importance of investing in the quality of ECEC and schooling, this will take time and the demands of Romania’s emerging high-skills industries are pressing now. This is why this report also examines measures to improve adult skills today, while expanding the education training pathways available to young people. Data shows that upper secondary students in vocational tracks in Romania are more likely to drop out, with lasting consequences for their employment prospects. One contributing factor is the limited availability of applied pathways beyond upper secondary education, which can leave vocational students with few opportunities for further education. This can lead to disengagement and a higher risk of early school leaving.
Romania has taken steps to address the skills gaps in its adult population. Participation in second chance programmes has nearly doubled over the past decade, and investments under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) aim to expand adult education and training opportunities, focusing on foundational, entrepreneurial, and digital skills. These are positive steps to address Romania’s traditionally limited adult learning provision. This review highlights two possible avenues to further extend the impact and reach of adult education and training, particularly for the most disadvantaged adults. Moving forward, greater investment in activation programmes –including adult training, and personalised job-search counselling offered by the public employment services– would help unemployed individuals access the reskilling and upskilling they need to re-enter the labour market. Continuing to expand second chance education nationwide will also be crucial to ensure those without upper secondary qualification can return to education, build foundational skills, and obtain the certification needed to pursue higher levels of education or progress in their careers.
The government also plans to diversify tertiary education with the introduction of “dual” vocational bachelor’s degrees combining classroom and work-based learning, and short-cycle tertiary programmes (ISCED 5), which are currently absent from the system. This review identifies two priorities to help Romania advance a more coherent and relevant post-secondary offer. First is to develop more supports at national level for tertiary education institutions (TEIs) to engage with industry partners. As international research shows, securing employer engagement even on a shorter-term basis to collaborate on work-based learning can be a challenge. Introducing degree-length dual education will require coordinated effort on the part of the government to properly incentivise the long-term engagement of employers in its development and operation. Second, Romania could establish a clear national vision and operational plan for mid-level qualifications, including short-cycle (ISCED 5) qualifications. Developing such a vision and plan at national level can contribute to a more coherent and integrated strategy for professional education, based on a clearer delineation of provider profiles.
Promoting equity and inclusion in education for vulnerable learners, particularly those from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, Roma communities, and with special education needs (SEN), is a priority for the system. This is especially pressing in rural areas, where nearly half of population is at risk of poverty and about one in three are self-identified Roma (Eurostat, 2023[11]; European Commission, 2022[12]). Many of the government’s current policies have the potential to improve outcomes amongst the most disadvantaged rural populations. The Ministry of Education and Research (hereafter the Ministry of Education) lowered the starting age for compulsory education to include the last two years of pre-primary education in 2020 and is currently in the process of building new nurseries and complementary settings, such as community kindergartens, toy libraries and play groups, throughout the country. This is important to ensure that all of Romania’s children, particularly young children from disadvantaged, rural and Roma communities, receive a strong start in life and in their education. Similarly, the Romanian government has expanded social supports to help disadvantaged students –including rural and Roma students– complete upper secondary education and access tertiary education.
A second government priority is to enhance the quality of upper secondary vocational education and training (also referred as Initial Vocational Education and Training, IVET). As in many OECD countries, socio-economically disadvantaged students in Romania are overrepresented in vocational upper secondary tracks and tend to achieve lower levels in both foundational and transversal competencies compared to their peers in academic tracks (OECD, 2023[13]). To ensure vocational pathways better cater to the diverse aptitudes of students, and lead to productive employment opportunities Romania plans to gradually expand the availability of ‘dual’ vocational programmes at the upper secondary years. These programmes will be organised in partnership with local employers and will include a stronger emphasis on work-based learning. Successfully implemented, these measures can promote greater equity in education by providing disadvantaged students with more relevant skills and better employment prospects. This report focuses on two areas critical to ensuring equal opportunities for all students to succeed in education and the labour market: expanding provision in underserved rural areas and strengthening support for vulnerable students and families to overcome demand-side barriers.
How access and equity in Romania’s education system compare to OECD benchmarks?
Figure 1.2 summarises indicators of participation in education and training in Romania, compared to the OECD and peers in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region. While Romania’s enrolment rates are below the OECD average across all levels, the most pronounced gaps are in ECEC and in upper secondary education. In tertiary education, Romania has made significant progress, nearly doubling the attainment rate of 25-64-year-olds from 10% in 2002 to 19% in 2023 (Eurostat, 2023[14]). However, the country’s tertiary attainment rate still remains well below the OECD average of 41% (OECD, 2024[8]).
Behind the national averages lie significant differences between Romania’s rural and urban regions, with high and growing disparities in participation and learning. The difference in PISA performance between rural and urban 15-year-olds is the highest among OECD and CEE countries. Children in rural areas are also far less likely to attend ECEC compared to their urban peers, and rural students are at a higher risk of dropping out of school. In rural areas, only six out of ten secondary students completed upper secondary education in 2022, compared to nine out of ten in urban areas (Ministry of Education of Romania, 2023[15]). This partly explains low enrolment in tertiary education: while 45% of Romanian school children are living in rural areas, just 24% of tertiary education enrolments come from rural students (World Bank, 2019[16]). Rural adults are also half as likely to participate in training, with only 16% taking part in 2022 compared to 36% in cities (Eurostat, 2022[17]). Overrepresented in poor rural areas, the Roma Community is one of the most marginalised groups in Romania. Estimates suggest that many Roma students remain out of school or drop out before completing compulsory education, and are severely underrepresented in ECEC and tertiary education (European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2023[18]; Dervis, Trifan and Jitaru, 2022[19]).
Source: OECD (2024[8]), Education at a Glance 2024: OECD Indicators, https://doi.org/10.1787/c00cad36-en; UIS (2022[20]), Total net enrolment rate by level of education, https://data.uis.unesco.org/#; Ministry of Education (2023[15]), Raport privind starea învățământului preuniversitar din România 2022 – 2023 [Report on the state of pre-university education in Romania 2022-2023], https://www.edu.ro/sites/default/files/_fi%C8%99iere/Minister/2023/Transparenta/Rapoarte_sistem/Raport-Starea-invatamantului-preuniversitar-2022-2023.pdf; OECD (2023[21]), PISA database 2022, https ://www.oecd.org/pisa/data/
Limited education and training provision in rural regions and high poverty remain significant barriers to increasing participation, particularly in the early and post-secondary levels. Close to 45% of Romania’s population lives in rural areas, yet only 10% of nurseries are located in these regions (Ministry of Education of Romania, 2023[5]). Of the 83 TEIs in the country, 29 are located in Bucureşti, and the remainder are mainly located in the cities of Cluj-Napoca, Iaşi and Timişoara (National Institute of Statistics, 2023[22]). During periods of demographic decline, as Romania is currently experiencing, TEIs outside the main cities tend to be harder hit by falling enrolment than institutions located in more attractive urban areas, jeopardising their continued operation (OECD, 2023[23]). Similarly, companies offering adult education and training are predominantly based in the Bucureşti-Ilfov region and other large urban areas (Ministry of Labour and Social Solidarity of Romania, 2019[24]).
What can Romania learn from OECD policy and practice to improve equality of opportunity and access to education?
Policy message 4: Target funding and digital programmes to expand quality education and training in disadvantaged rural and Roma communities
By targeting services towards disadvantaged rural communities, Romania can significantly improve the education outcomes and life chances of children and young adults in these areas. Currently, while nearly half of the population lives in rural regions, a disproportionately small share of education provision reaches them. To close this gap, policies must directly expand access in these places, particularly in early childhood education, tertiary education, and adult learning, where opportunities are most limited. This report highlights three promising avenues to achieve this.
The first is rethinking network planning so that local authorities’ decentralised efforts are better coordinated and informed by evidence of need. This is important both to expand ECEC services in areas with the most significant unmet needs and to consolidate the school network in ways that guarantee better quality without precluding student access. OECD countries that have reorganised their networks have typically relied on robust analyses of provision and demand forecasts, alongside a national strategy for school network reform. Such strategies set the overall direction for organising the network and establish core principles for local decision-making, such as consulting with the school community. Coordination platforms at the county level can also support network planning by bringing together local authorities and other relevant stakeholders and enabling resource sharing and joint service provision. Such coordination platforms have been implemented in Portugal to share information and develop integrated network plans at the regional level, based on the local plans of participating municipalities.
Second, Romania could introduce targeted funding schemes to expand provision in disadvantaged communities. In early childhood education and care, targeted national funds could complement local investments in infrastructure and transport, focusing on local authorities with low revenues or limited capacity to access EU funds. This approach would help increase provision in areas of high need. In tertiary education, special grants could encourage students to move and enrol in designated TEIs outside major cities. Similar scholarship schemes have been implemented in some OECD countries to counter the “magnet” effect of large urban areas and support the economic viability of TEIs in regional locations. For adult education, creating stronger financial incentives for the private sector to invest in training will be instrumental to expand provision. Mechanisms like a training levy could channel funds for adult education towards firms in sectors or regions crucial to Romania’s development. This would particularly benefit SMEs, which despite representing 68% of private sector employment, invest far less in adult education and training compared to larger companies in urban centres (Eurostat, 2022[25]).
Finally, Romania should continue advancing efforts to develop more flexible provision to reach rural communities. While in ECEC, ongoing efforts to diversify provision in complementary settings are expanding coverage in remote and disadvantaged areas, similar targeted initiatives for improving rural access in tertiary education have yet to gain significant attention in the national debate. Romania should explore possibilities to use the increased digital capacity developed through its NRRP projects to develop innovative ways to provide supported remote access to tertiary education programmes. This could be progressed through developing high-quality online programmes, or through hybrid means where students first complete a period of remote study and then progress to in-person study at a TEI campus.
Policy message 5: Break down participation barriers for vulnerable students so they can fully benefit from expanded educational opportunities
Increasing supply in Romania’s lagging rural regions is a first necessary step to address the rural-urban education divide, but other factors –such as financial barriers, administrative constraints, and limited information and awareness– also play a significant role, particularly in the early years, tertiary education and adult learning. Romania has already implemented a number of initiatives aimed at supporting rural students, Roma communities, and those with special education needs (SEN), including scholarships, tuition-free places, and welfare support. Building on these efforts, Romania should take additional steps to orient the system towards greater equity of access.
This report provides examples of how the Ministry of Education could raise parents’ awareness on the importance of early education and care and engage them as active participants in their child’s early learning and development. In Romania, many parents and caregivers are not fully aware of the benefits that quality early education and care can have on children’s development. For instance, a recent survey on the public perception of early education in Romania shows that six in ten respondents mentioned education as an essential need for their young children, but only a third understood the concept of early education (IRES, 2021[26]). Possible options include expanding existing information campaigns by using new channels to reach parents, particularly those from marginalised backgrounds –such as school mediators in disadvantaged communities, and healthcare settings like maternity wards– and integrating parental education programmes into a broader package of social services for families and children, rather than offering them as standalone initiatives. Initiatives such as '1000 premiers jours' (first 1000 days) in France, and the Sure Start Children’s Centres in the United Kingdom provide relevant examples on how parental awareness and education programmes can be delivered through different channels and combined with other forms of support for families.
This review also recommends policies to address demand-side barriers in tertiary education and adult learning. In tertiary education, Romania should consider streamlining the current admissions process to make it easier for all applicants to navigate, while at the same time opening new admissions routes that serve a wider share of the adult population. Currently, access to tertiary education requires the baccalaureate diploma, cutting off a large share of the population. Even those achieving the baccalaureate must navigate complex decentralised admission processes. Options include introducing centralised admissions, and organising supplementary admission tracks for mature students who are not transitioning directly from upper secondary education but may wish to return to education later in life. Such admission tracks for mature students exist in OECD countries like Ireland and Spain. Other ways to promote access to tertiary studies would be for Romania to rebalance the allocation of tuition-free places and scholarships to favour students with the greatest financial need, and ensure that all students have clear, transparent information about tertiary education options and their entitlements to state support.
In adult education and training, improving the recognition of prior non-formal and informal learning (RPL) is also a means to enable more personalised learning pathways that address individual needs and reduce training time. Romania’s current RPL system covers only vocational qualifications up to level 3, excluding post-secondary and tertiary education (ISCED 4+). Providing opportunities for more advanced qualifications would make RPL a more attractive and valuable option for individuals, especially for those seeking to certify learning at the post-secondary level. Involving stakeholders can also help expand services and take-up. Trade unions and NGOs can help raise awareness about RPL opportunities and advocate for the interests of their constituencies, while enterprises can contribute by recognising RPL certifications and incorporating RPL into their training and recruitment practices.
Policy message 6: Create a delivery plan to roll out dual vocational education in rural areas
In Romania, improving the design of upper secondary education is particularly important for equity. Currently, upper secondary programmes differ in quality, and some of them do not offer equal opportunities to master foundational skills. Ongoing plans to enhance Initial Vocational Education and Training (IVET) in Romania by implementing dual VET programmes that incorporate more work-based learning are promising. Evidence suggests a focus on work-based learning can reduce dropout rates and facilitate smoother transitions into the workforce (OECD, 2018[27]). However, the challenge lies in scaling this initiative and motivating and supporting companies, especially in rural and disadvantaged areas, to offer high-quality training opportunities.
Three considerations will be essential for the successful rollout of dual IVET in rural Romania. First, smaller rural IVET schools would benefit from increased collaboration with larger providers to be able to offer their students greater curricular diversity, and to find sufficient partner companies for work-based learning. The government’s plan to develop 29 regional campuses that will co-locate vocational dual education at secondary, post-secondary and tertiary level is a positive step to address this. Such integrated sites form an important part of the VET landscape in established OECD VET systems, such as Austria and Germany. These dual campuses could provide vocational students from rural schools with opportunities to attend some courses delivered by universities or post-secondary, non-tertiary colleges, including in a hybrid format. They could also host cooperative platforms to engage employers at regional and sectoral levels (see Policy message 3).
Structuring programmes to alternate between longer, uninterrupted periods of classroom learning, and work-based training could also help reduce the need for frequent, long commutes between vocational schools and workplaces, a common challenge for rural students. Finally, providing training and on-site support for company trainers in small rural businesses will be essential to help them develop the pedagogical skills to effectively pass on their specialised knowledge and support students in building foundational and transversal competencies in more applied, practical settings.
Romania's reform agenda is focused on strengthening governance in education across several fronts, from how institutions are funded, evaluated and supported, to how inter-sectoral policies are coordinated across government. A key goal is to gradually increase public expenditure on education to at least 15% of total government spending by 2027. Achieving this target, coupled with economic growth, would represent a significant increase in education funding compared to recent years, when public spending on education has remained below 10% of total government expenditure (Eurostat, 2022[28]).
Beyond funding, policy reforms will attempt to strike a better balance between accountability and the support needed to strengthen institutional capacity. County School Inspectorates (CSI) will be restructured into County Directorates for Pre-University Education, shifting their focus away from inspection and towards helping ECEC settings and schools improve. Meanwhile, quality assurance frameworks, from ECEC to tertiary education have been simplified with a streamlined set of indicators, placing greater emphasis on continuous improvement. To better coordinate the deployment of EU funds, Romania has taken steps to improve inter-ministerial collaboration, particularly in early childhood education and skills policies. To make the most of these governance changes, Romania should consider reprioritising funding in favour of the early stages of education while enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of spending decisions, accelerate efforts to strengthen professional agency at the frontline, and further reinforce cross-sectoral coordination to ensure greater policy coherence.
How does education governance and funding in Romania compare to OECD benchmarks?
Figure 1.3 provides an international comparison of funding and inter-ministerial coordination within Romania’s education and skills sector. Government spending in ECEC and from primary to tertiary education in Romania has remained low and is concentrated in tertiary education. In 2021, public expenditure on early childhood education and care (ECEC) accounted for 1% of total government spending, while public spending from primary to tertiary education represented 6.4%. Both figures are below the OECD averages of 1.7% for ECEC and 10% for primary to tertiary levels (OECD, 2024[8]). With 96% of total education funding coming from public sources, these low levels of government spending result in particularly low per-student spending, especially in ECEC –despite recent increases– and primary education (OECD, 2024[8]).
Note: The latest available data for Romania on government expenditure on educational institutions per full-time equivalent student in pre-primary is of 2020.
Source: OECD (2021[29]), Expenditure on educational institutions per full-time equivalent student, http://data-explorer.oecd.org/s/eu; OECD (2023[30]), OECD Skills Strategy Ireland: Assessment and Recommendations, OECD Skills Studies, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/d7b8b40b-en; OECD (2023[13]), PISA 2022 Results (Volume II): Learning During – and From – Disruption, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/a97db61c-en
Similar to many OECD countries, Romania's governance structures vary across different levels of the education and skills system. Some of these arrangements are evolving as the country seeks new ways to drive improvements. Since the 2021-2022 school year, the Ministry of Education has been gradually integrating nurseries into the education system to enhance the quality and availability of ECEC services, previously overseen by local authorities under the Ministry of Health, which focused mainly on childcare. In the skills sector, responsibilities are split between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labour and Social Solidarity, supported by various specialised bodies. Although this division is common across OECD countries, coordination in Romania remains weak, often resulting in duplicated efforts and fragmented policies. This fragmentation reflects a broader pattern of relatively weak inter-ministerial coordination in Romania.
Recent measures to shift quality assurance from compliance to enhancement and give institutions more support are important steps to help them use their autonomy more effectively. Despite efforts over the past decade to grant schools more flexibility, especially in curriculum adaptation, Romania’s school principals report some of the lowest levels of perceived responsibility for decisions on course content and student assessment among all PISA-participating countries. Various factors might explain this, from limited capacity and guidance on how to assume these new responsibilities, to continued high levels of bureaucratic controls outside and inside schools that take schools’ time and attention away from instructional tasks. Similarly, while universities naturally enjoy a degree of autonomy, they are still subject to strong bureaucratic control in most areas of their organisation, and need to develop their internal capacity for research, innovation, entrepreneurship, and engagement with external stakeholders (OECD/European Union, 2019[31]).
What can Romania learn from OECD policy and practice to improve the governance of its education and skills sector?
Policy message 7: Refocus funding to early childhood and primary education to address spending gaps that cement disadvantage, while improving efficiency of spending across all levels
Reaching the new public spending target for education would mark a step change in total funding for the sector. However, Romania does not appear to be considering how this increase could benefit the early stages of education, where sustained investments are most needed to improve quality and help more young students build strong foundations for learning. This review recommends Romania reconsiders its funding model, by reprioritising public expenditure towards the early stages of education, attracting private funding, and enhancing the efficiency of spending.
First, Romania should consider reprioritising public expenditure in favour of the early, pre-primary and primary years. Research shows that investment in the early stages of education generates substantial social and private returns, particularly for children and families from less privileged backgrounds (Dougherty and Morabito, 2023[32]). While tertiary education also offers high returns, these are largely private, benefiting individual graduates through better wages and employment prospects (Psacharopoulos and Patrinos, 2018[33]). In Romania, where students from disadvantaged backgrounds face barriers to access tertiary education, these returns disproportionately benefit their wealthier peers. Currently, public funding per student in tertiary education is almost double that of ECEC and nearly three times that of primary education. This gap is all the more significant considering Romania has the highest child poverty rate in the EU (Eurostat, 2023[34]). Shifting public expenditure towards the early stages of education, and pursuing efforts to improve quality, can steer the system towards greater equity. This review suggests ways to do this, for example by setting targets or minimum benchmarks for an increase in the share of the education budget allocated to these sectors over the period to 2027, while encouraging investment from private sources in tertiary education and adult learning.
Second, proactive efforts to leverage alternative funding sources would help increase total investments, especially in ECEC. Many countries in the EU and the OECD have tapped into private sources to expand childcare services and address demand that the public sector cannot fulfil. If well designed, such approaches can increase provision while also improving equity. One option could be introducing parental fees for children from higher socio-economic backgrounds attending nurseries while ensuring free places for those who cannot afford to pay. This would increase funding for the sector, while ensuring public resources benefits those young children and families that need it most. Another, complementary option is to encourage private investment from employers in publicly managed nurseries, using incentives such as tax exemptions, or general business credits to cover childcare expenditures. These efforts would help expand coverage in large, dynamic, urban areas facing significant unmet demand and allow public funds to prioritise and target more disadvantaged areas.
Increases in funding will take time to implement, which is why this review emphasises the need for Romania to give more attention to the efficiency of spending decisions. While the Ministry of Finance closely monitors state budget allocations, the Ministry of Education has yet to regularly analyse the efficiency and effectiveness of its spending. Two valuable tools for this –spending reviews that assess value for money, and policy evaluations– could be applied more systematically. Beyond these general measures to improve efficiency across all levels, this review identifies specific opportunities to enhance efficiency and effectiveness of spending in the schooling and tertiary education sector. Consolidating the school network is expected to lead to efficiencies and savings, which could be reinvested in improving rural schools. In the tertiary sector, Romania could also benefit from reflecting on the efficiency and effectiveness of its main funding model for TEIs, particularly the balance of emphasis between rewarding performance and supporting institution development. A substantial share of Romanian TEIs’ budgets depends on performance-related funding, yet the indicators and weightings used for its calculation are complex, not clearly substantiated and can lead to year-on-year instability in funding allocations. Meanwhile, only 1.5% of the overall funding pot is allocated for institutional development, which supports institution-level projects aligned with nationally set strategic goals. Romania could consider revising the current performance funding model for TEIs, with a view to simplifying the calculation methodology, better promoting stability of funding and providing clearer articulation of how the indicators and weightings used align with current reform efforts. Reallocating a sizeable share of its current performance-based fund towards institution development and prioritising the allocation of the newly increased fund in ways that can support all institutions, will also be important to develop TEI’s ability to improve their performance.
Policy message 8: Fast-track the modernisation of education governance by strengthening institutional autonomy but maintaining accountability
Ongoing reforms are shaping governance in education to better balance accountability with the support needed for institutions to take charge of their own improvement. This is crucial, as data reveals that school leaders in Romania need more support to evaluate school quality, plan for improvement, and exercise instructional autonomy (OECD, 2020[35]). Two reform goals show particular promise to achieve this: reinforcing counties' on-site support to ECEC settings and schools, and moving toward a more differentiated, enhancement-focused approach to quality assurance.
The steps taken to refocus County Directorates’ roles on monitoring and support are positive. Their geographical proximity to ECEC settings and schools positions them well to guide the development of positive learning environments. Building trust between County Directorates and schools, and strengthening counties’ competencies to coach and support them, will be critical to support a successful transition. Trust with schools might be difficult to build since Country Directorates still influence decisions on teacher pay and promotion, which can undermine their supportive role. Romania should review the role of the Directorates in these high-stakes decisions. Developing the capabilities of County Directorate staff – both in data literacy to monitor schools and work on school improvement strategies, and soft skills to coach school teams – will be equally important for them to assume their new role. The Ministry of Education plays an important role here. It will need to reform how it manages county directorates, engaging less in top-down control and instead focusing on enabling of cross-county learning and collaboration. Scotland's Collaborative Improvement (CI) initiative provides an example of a national effort to foster collaboration among local authorities overseeing and supporting schools.
Licensing and quality assurance processes can also contribute to building institutional capacities. Notably, ECEC centres, particularly nurseries, would benefit from more guidance to organise their physical space and acquire materials that enable rich child-staff interactions. A consolidated licensing framework offering clear guidance on space, furniture and materials, along with training and on-site support for leaders and local authorities in charge of acquiring materials and infrastructure, can help ensure investments to expand the sector are used to create the types of spaces that support children’s learning and development. Developing bespoke quality evaluation frameworks for the early and pre-school years, with statements of practice illustrating what very good practice looks in these settings, would also help ECEC professionals and evaluators understand and work towards national quality standards.
In tertiary education, efforts to improve quality are ongoing. The most recent updates to the methodology in 2024, although not yet implemented in practice, appear clearly targeted towards supporting a more differentiated approach to external quality assurance processes. Looking forward, Romania’s efforts to improve the quality and outcomes of education programmes could be further supported by setting a clearer national vision for the system that distinguishes TEIs horizontally (by mission and orientation) and vertically (by performance across different domains). These distinctions would create the basis for a more strategic approach to quality assurance and enhancement, one that is more focused on development. This would also allow more resources to be channelled towards capacity-building and supporting innovative practices in TEIs.
Efforts to enhance the direct support provided to education institutions and shift towards a more differentiated, enhancement-oriented approach to quality assurance will require investments in Romania’s data infrastructure and analytical capacities. This is essential to enable the timely identification of challenges and ensure interventions are targeted where they are most needed.
Policy message 9: Create a more unified approach to policymaking by supercharging efforts to enhance cross-ministerial collaboration and policy coherence
Drawing on EU funding, Romania has taken steps to improve inter-ministerial collaboration, particularly on ECEC and skills policies. Investments through Romania’s National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) aim to strengthen coordination among various ministries working on policies that support early childhood education (Portal Legislativ, 2023[36]). Similarly, to streamline consultation on skills policy, in 2020 the Ministry of Labour established the National Coordination Group bringing together representatives from various ministries, the education and training sector and industry and social partners. The group meets regularly to discuss policies on labour market skills demand, quality assurance, and funding in adult education.
While these coordination platforms are a positive step forward, they have the potential to do much more – not only in aligning EU investments but also in helping Romania develop a more coherent policy framework to advance national goals for child development, poverty reduction, and women’s employment. This is especially important for policies that support young children and families. Currently, investments in welfare and social policies for children and families are not always efficient or mutually reinforcing in encouraging ECEC participation and better outcomes. For instance, the social safety net does not adequately protect children against poverty. Similarly, while generous parental leave entitlements offer important support, the larger portion reserved for mothers, combined with weak return-to-work incentives and relatively rigid working hour regulations, may make it more challenging for families, especially mothers, to balance caregiving and professional aspirations (OECD, 2022[37]). Romania’s new inter-sectoral committee for early education, created to coordinate NRRP investments in the sector, is well placed to facilitate inter-ministerial coordination in planning and budgeting policies for families and children. To enhance its effectiveness, the committee would benefit from becoming a more permanent platform beyond the NRRP, and involving the Ministry of Finance, which currently does not appear as one of its core members.
Romania can also consider additional measures to strengthen coordination on skills policies between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labour. One option is to establish a coordinating committee responsible for vocational education, adult learning, occupational standards, vocational qualifications, and skills assessments and anticipation. This would help align efforts and streamline processes across existing agencies and ministries. A complementary option is to develop a single cross-sectoral and cross-ministerial skills strategy. This would move away from the current system where each ministry operates its own separate strategy, with some overlapping objectives and differing timeframes.
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