Education Minister Daniel David outlined his top short, medium and long-term priorities on Tuesday, from unlocking employment and overhauling hourly pay to creating a national pact to fund education and research.
“I tell you the main priorities in the short, medium and long term. In the short term is the unlocking of positions, we have the hiring locked in, it is very important to unlock and I hope to get this at the beginning of the year”, said Daniel David.
Minister of Education, Daniel David PHOTO edu.ro
The minister specified for Adevărul that among the urgent measures is the revision of payment by the hour in pre-university education, a system considered insufficiently motivating for teachers.
“The method of calculation was relatively correct, with the new calculation the salary was related to the working time, but the salary not being very high is not motivating. We need to find a formula to correct this”he said.
Another priority is the student and performance scholarships for students, financed through a mix of budgetary and European funds. “The state budget will have to be combined with European funds, because we will not have resources, at least next year, but we have started discussions with the Ministry of European Funds”the minister specified.
Daniel David also spoke about the need to reorganize the school network, stressing that the merger process must be continued, but done carefully. “We’re careful about the merges we’ve done, more will have to be done because our system is fragmented, but they’ve been done quickly before”he said.
In the medium term, one of the major stakes will be the new unitary salary scale. “It will be important that we are all on the same side of the barricade, so that the promise made to education is respected, namely that the salary for the beginning teacher and assistant starts from the average gross salary”said Daniel David.
In his view, the long-term goal is to build a stable funding framework for education and research. “It is important to convince the political factor that the education and research budget, now that we have started to recover, is already ready to assimilate financial resources to use them effectively”said the minister.
For this purpose, Daniel David proposed a national pact for education and research, based on three principles: “The first, every year the budget should be bigger than the previous one — we didn’t specify how much, because we have to be realistic. The second, let’s keep the two areas, education and research, together as much as possible. And the third is that any big measure has to fit within the OECD and EU benchmarks.”
