Overtime, increased rules and risk of redundancies. While inflation decreases real income, teachers are afraid that the state cuts just what school keeps in life: people, time and meaning. Between the ideal of an education for all and the reality of a damage reform, teachers remain the only ones trying to keep school in life. What price?
School
In the context in which the VAT in books is about to grow, the scholarships are cut, and the access to academic resources remains precarious for many students, Oana Camelia Șerban, lecturer at the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Bucharest, says: “For a country in which the printed newspaper is a package for zacusca jars, not a compass for reality; in which you do not have a monde or pounds and weekly supplements, but one day a year in which you post the first three stanzas in Luceafărul and call it celebration of national culture, although we are a bit mocking all the stars; In which you have more fools even than pharmacies, bookstores have long been disqualified from this comparison; In which you make more money as an unskilled worker, starting from the premise that the bourgeoisie and the proletariat have an eternal confrontation, recovered in the equation “the smart with the map and the fool”, maybe we do not understand some minimal things. Romania is not a country of education and culture and has not been for decades. In us, the great revolution was compulsory education and literacy as possible. We still celebrate these. There are mediocre teachers, who put their students to tread some contents that do not have logic in their minds – but what matters, as long as you say what others want to hear, not what you think about your mind?! – and dedicated teachers, who sometimes come with money from home, to make a better world for their students, and who make this profession from pure passion, no matter how unworthy the system makes them feel“
Who still has the right to merit?
The education system, warns the university reader, becomes less accessible to the deserving and more hostile to those who cannot survive by compromise: “We cut the scholarships of the students because the notion of merit is not applied morally. Interesting point where the poor legislators arrived! Is it the fault of whom that the distributive and populist justice was never followed by a corrective one? That someone, on a hot day of educated Romania-a good political joke-made a law or the students, reasonable merit, whatever that means? In our country, neither the merits of students, nor the percentages of the doctoral theses of those who turn the world on the fingers do not have reasonable thresholds. (…) But more, who is the fault that while some have divided the crooked justice into the world, others are struggling to do something with their lives? To whom is the fault that the student has courses sometimes from 8 in the morning to 8 in the evening, but does he still have to eat? And live years that no one gives back? To whom is the fault that for many the university world should be the bourgeois that allow themselves, not the brain that deserves?
As for the meaning of the reform, the diagnosis is dry: Romania is the country where “Tai where you can, not where you need to be”, explains Oana Camelia Șerban. To cut from education and culture is equivalent to cutting from the only space in which a society can grow.
“Maybe the merit should be discussed in the political world too. You do not have enough intelligent laws adopted, you do not take all the allowance. That you do not deserve. You do not work 8 hours a day (at least), then you do not pay the state. That you do not deserve it.” she adds.
Books become a luxury. And a resistance test
The “reform” is consistent with Romania in which it applies, adds the reader. “In the universities in which they are pirates to have access to quality items and books, you can grow VAT in the book, no? We will all pull a single copy, which remains from a modest circulation, and then, it is important to have an electronic option; a torrent will make a difference if you burn, when you have to read, Nothing!adds Oana Camelia Șerban.
In his vision, the budgetary cuts in education, as well as the strength of the teachers, are not only effects of a chaotic government, but symptoms of a society that has lost its compass. “Holding it that way, over five years, we will be worse than where we were in November 2024. Because more and more acultural, Romanians will be more and more resentful. The remedy for resentment is not well-being. It’s a little educated decency and exercised reason. But Romania will remain broken in two at this rate. Half will be the indifferent. But the democracy of indifference is a simulacrum of freedom. The other half will be of the angry. The democracy of the revenge is false power. The third class no longer exists, those who build something, if left. Between “no” and “I am not interested” appear all the extreme phenomena, all the false heroes, all the failed political experiments, all the patriotic attitudes, all the messianic appeals. Cut from education and culture, as “no” and “I’m not interested” to be heard more and more to those who said “yes” for them!”, The reader from the Faculty of Philosophy completes.
Discouraging the didactic vocation
In the context of the new reform, the government announced the increase of the teaching norm, the introduction of overtime and the reduction of vacancies, measures that have aroused strong reactions in the education system. While some teachers directly feel the pressure of these changes, others point out that the worst impact is seen in discouraging new generations to pursue a didactic career.
“As a primary education teacher, I do not affect the increase of the didactic norm and the introduction of overtime because, during the entire didactic activity so far, I worked additionally (when I had space available: either meditations with students, or preparation for school competitions).says Daniela Berechet, teacher, primary education.
On the other hand, it also observes a measure with a positive effect: “I was very glad that the number of students in the classroom was reduced. The advantages are multiple: the richer examination of each, the themes are more easily verified, the scoring is rhythmic, the efficiency of the teaching-learning act is superior”, she explains.
However, low salaries contribute to the demotivation of teachers: “The pay and so small, demotivates the teachers. Many, even if they are well trained and do this out of passion, give up education for better paid jobs. In the future, fewer will go to a teaching career.”concludes Daniela Berechet.
