Education and Research Minister Daniel David has announced that a report on the state of education is in the works, with the findings to be available by the end of May. David also talked about teacher pay, framework plans and short and medium term strategy.
Daniel David talked about how he sees the implementation of performance indicators PHOTO: UBB archive
“That report should identify, in my opinion, the good things we have and the causes for these good things, so that we know how to preserve and develop them; the bad things that exist in the system so that we look for their causes and change them”said Minister Daniel David.
“I would like to see cooperation and cumulative developments”
Although the “diagnosis” will be made after the results of the announced report are available, the minister talked about some problems that he has identified and for which strategies are already in place. In the area of research, the minister said, a major problem is fragmentation. On the one hand, there are the national research and development institutes, there are the Romanian Academy institutes, there are the university research centers and there are also the private research centers. “Very often these components do not cooperate, they do not work together, they often overlap in activities and fragmentation fails to lead us to a cumulative development of knowledge”, the minister pointed out. During this period, an evaluation process of all research, development and innovation institutes is underway, in order to establish a strategy regarding the development of the field.
“I think we need all the components. We also need national institutes – which are more related to practical activity, and Academy institutes – on fundamental research, research from universities must be followed, but, attention, in a logic where we avoid overlaps, avoid free competitions and often on public funds. I would like to see cooperation and cumulative developments”, said Daniel David.
“Universities play the Champions League even if they don’t win the Champions League”
Speaking about higher education, the minister appreciated that “some positive developments” can be seen in the case of universities. Higher education institutions join European alliances, some very strong, and also appear in international rankings, even if “more towards the tail of the ranking“. “Play the Champions League, even if they don’t win the Champions League,” said the minister. When there are 30,000 universities, the fact that you entered the first 1,500 is a win, in conditions where funding and legislative mechanisms do not favor “good enough” your excellency, the minister added.
The major problem of university education is instead the lack of differentiation of universities. Through the education law, universities are given the opportunity to voluntarily define their academic mission. They can focus on education-training of human resources-research that local or regional authorities need, others can be focused more balanced on the area of education and research, and those who want to do advanced research can do that, he explained the minister. The fact that they are not differentiated instead brings problems, related to the evaluation criteria, the bureaucratization of the evaluation processes, students can be confused, etc.
The flexibility of study programs is another desired for university education, even more so when we compare ourselves to prestigious universities, the minister pointed out.
“You need teachers who are motivated and trained in modern teaching methods”
Speaking about the problems identified at the level of pre-university education, Minister Daniel David insisted on the importance of the transfer of skills from the teacher to the student. and on the reasons that led to the results of students in recent years “Competence means three things: declarative knowledge – what you know how to say, procedural knowledge – what you know how to do, and values”. said the minister. But in the Romanian school there is rarely a balance between the three, and the PISA tests, said the minister, show that this transfer of skills is not done very well. “Sure we can think about why, but first let’s admit that we have a problem with this transfer of skills,” emphasized the minister.
One of the factors favoring the transfer of skills is the human resource.
“You need teachers who are motivated and trained in modern teaching methods. To have a motivated teacher, must have a decent salary, reasonable, according to the role it has in society. I look at the last years and see that the best graduates(…) didn’t really choose to go to pre-university. They were not motivated. So we need to think very carefully about the salary level, so that, I repeat, no one asks for something unreasonable, but something decent, according to the role we want to give to education in our society”, the minister claimed.
Because there was talk in the public space about performance indicators that Minister Daniel David wants implemented in the education system, he gave additional details, emphasizing that these performance indicators are not linked to the basic salary, but will be amounts that they will add to the basic income in the form of prizes and bonuses.
“Performance indicators are not linked to base salary. I believe that the basic salary must respect the respect we give to the teacher in society and education. (…) That’s right, performance counts for awards and bonuses, beyond the basic salary”, David specified.
Work will begin on these performance indicators, but the provision of bonuses for high-performing teachers will take into account budgetary possibilities and will most likely await the recovery of the economic-financial situation before the system is implemented. However, prioritizing the solution to the problem of paying teachers according to their role is necessary, the minister insisted, explaining that a strategy similar to the one in health will have to be adopted. Otherwise, departures from the system will continue, while valuable graduates will avoid, as they currently do, entry into education. New training programs will also be implemented for teachers, David also announced.
The framework plans for the high school, put up for debate at the end of January
Another essential component for a quality education is the curriculum, which starts from the establishment of framework plans, programs and textbooks.
The minister announced that by the end of this month, the framework plans for the high school will be put up for public debate. They will be displayed on the website, they will also be sent to teachers, but public debates will also be organized. “I will plan four meetings in the big academic centers – Bucharest, Cluj, Iași and Timișoara -, because they are big centers and can bring interested people from the other counties, where we can have these debates in which all the relevant actors can come and who want to get involved”announced the minister.
Work will be done first with the group of experts and international feedback will also be requested, the minister said. If good ideas come up during discussions, “I will not want them to remain in the formula in which I proposed them and with small changes here and there. If they are good ideas, I am willing to rethink them and make them look different, because in the end that is what we are interested in, to have some framework plans for the high school that will allow us, through programs, textbooks, teacher training, to be able to generate graduates of high school who are good specialists, and people prepared to go to university, if they wish, but also good citizens. For me, a good citizen means a protector of democracy”, said the minister.
