If you follow the survey of party cadres (it doesn’t matter who it is – the results converge in one, vague direction) from the Ministry of Education, we can say that everything is better than ever. A few more toilets were built, although the number of unsanitary toilets in schoolyards is the same as last year (perhaps some of the readers still remember the 3-year-old child who drowned in the school septic tank in 2019, although we doubt it: despite (a national scandal, even then no one was held responsible), several more schools were merged because in many rural areas not enough children are being born to support the existence of an educational institution within a radius of several kilometers, the renovation of some schools began this summer, not to mention that there are other school divisions where the rehabilitation process has not been completed even after four or five years (the schools being rehabilitated operate in several centers scattered here and there, perhaps private, where the state will pay monthly rent for several years, equal to the cost of building a new school), although they had a completion date of 2020 or 2021, several nurseries are squeezed under the kindergarten, in general, what we already know from practice is happening. What we would all like is not happening, although I suspect that this impersonal “everyone” is a rhetorical exaggeration, the common interest is a diluted concept in Romania. Someone does not want to improve the education system, and someone sat above the school, right in the ministerial departments.

The recent idea, supported by the prefect of Bucharest, to apply drug tests in any educational institution appeared as a result of some violations that have undermined confidence in the Romanian authorities for a long time. The use of soft drugs (and not only) in national colleges, technical and vocational schools has been known for many years. In the morning or in the evening, the parks near the capital’s universities are full of young people who listen to music, talk, laugh, have fun and… smoke weed, as they say in the slang that has already become state. The police come, check a few, the most aggressive and scandalous, take them to the hospital “Aleksandra Obregiya”, and then release them without additional final checks. Young people do not trade, but only consume, which is not punishable by law. This is the kind of security that the Ministry of Internal Affairs offers to parents with schoolchildren. Drug testing is a pathetic piece of smoke in the run-up to an election year: assuming there is testing (under what conditions and for which students?, are we also testing 5th graders or elementary students?), teenagers can abstain from drug use for a few weeks until they pass a period of stormy inspections and third world khairupism. We assume that we will not start applying weekly anti-drug filters in all schools in Romania. It would be a Babylon that would surpass the Covid trials of a few years ago. In addition, suspicion of guiltalready proven by state authorities in relation to minors, related to feeling unrecognized guilt: if we know about the spread of consumption of psychoactive substances – as evidence, KNOW where and when students smoke during the day – why haven’t measures been taken yet? Why was the problem not fixed in time? Because there is a lack of means and will even at this moment, behind the smoke screen is a politician who forces the home owner to appear in statements for the press.

From a political simulacrum, which only creates civil insecurity and social instability, to the politicization of school life is only a step. “The 2022 report of the Ministry of Education states that all management positions in school inspectorates and teaching staff houses are occupied politically, by placement. For two years now, the Ministry has refused to hold tenders, as required by law. More than 1,700 school principals are also politically motivated.”[1] In fact, we do not need politicized leadership in schools. We already have representatives from the local council and one of the mayors (or the mayor himself) on the board of directors of schools in Romania due to the current education law. Adequate school administration is carried out under political protection and under such conditions. But, from time to time, a son-in-law, a cousin, a lover, a nephew and a niece want to take a managerial position somewhere in order to pay better, earn something on the side, KNOW and we, and if they work in the education system, we, relatives of politicians or friends of the family, help them with a sinecure here, a decision-making position there, according to remuneration and budget. From the state, of course. We cannot accept politicization as a functional concept in this sense: nepotism is more intense than political party membership in state inspections and institutions where not applicable state policy, but it spreads orders, procedures and is edited soporific administrative protocols. Further, although there is an attempt to bring the inspectorates under the control of ARACIP (the Romanian Agency for the Quality Assurance of Pre-University Education), the inspectorates are not disappearing, they are not being completely abolished, as their huge ineffectiveness will testify for decades. in a row The professionalization of the position of school inspector through an exam would be something that would only partially clean the stables of Augias, since rigged exams or irregular subjects for employment are the order of the day in the Romanian public administration. What is the point of appointing wolves as guardians of sheep? Probably about self-destruction as a state. In non-cracking schools, state policies, if any, apply. It is true that their implementation is managerially imperfect, but something poorly conceived from the beginning is undone by its wrong execution, often unintentionally.

The discussion about decentralization and own school budget appears from year to year as a passing topic of conversation in the mass media, without any optimistic consequences in the medium and long term. First, a public school cannot work without procedures and methodologies imposed by the Ministry of Education and verified in practice by inspections. The state education system is unified by definition, otherwise justice cannot be achieved, and the right to quality education, guaranteed by the state, is not respected. Decentralization (national, county, regional, local?) is a wish that can easily be made a reality in private schools. The number of procedures and methodologies in the state is large, but far from complete. Schools write their own set of internal procedures, which means they are bought from a law firm or borrowed and adapted from other schools where they were originally developed by someone specialized. Teachers are not lawyers and do not know the laws inside out. Inspectors basically write procedures and methodologies, which some of them, the best, extremely few, already do, but of course they are usually the ones who are selected and appointed according to opaque criteria, so there is no question of rules and unitary , complete, logical and easy to understand procedures. Procedures and methodologies in the Romanian school average 20-30 pages, are written in a confusing, cumbersome manner, covered with numerous references to OMETS, OME and OM, HG and OUG, which continue chronologically until the year 2000, as the ministries changed their name several times, forming a real cobwebs, millstones on the heads of directors, teachers and school administration. Secondly, financial decentralization of schools is a funny joke under the given conditions. The school budget goes to the mayor’s office for approval by the city council, which often cuts it without additional comments and explanations, provided that it is appropriate (in the age of digitalization, we make effective decisions made verbally over the phone), in writing to schools. Local budgets are small, and we are talking, however, about other priorities, not about the school, for example, about enriching some poor enterprises. The rehabilitation and repair fund does not depend on the decision of the school, but on the goodwill of local council members, political people by definition. Principals feel shivers down their spines as City Hall steps in with a rehabilitation plan, even as the school urgently needs changes to the state heritage component. From month to month, we struggle with unpaid utility bills, for which the City Hall does not allocate the necessary funds for heat, light, and water in a timely manner. The management of the school rightly fears that the rehabilitation will last for years, because it will affect the number of students, the quality of education and the prestige of the school. Resettlement is a dangerous decision that the government resorts to out of necessity. The cost of rebuilding schools is not the subject of research by other authorities of the Romanian state, although in this way taxpayers’ resources are drained into all kinds of pockets (politicians), and then we hypocritically complain about low or inconsistent local budgets. Why pay taxes correctly, when the state abuses public money, inflating the budgets of individuals who are caught in the big food chain of public-private partnerships? Why do we use our money to make millionaires who humiliate and insult us? Decentralization of schools in these conditions does not make sense. Principals are unable to attract sufficient funding for school development needs, while the private environment is poor in many school districts and local communities. After all, we are talking about the second poorest state in the European Union. Effectiveness and deworming of central state institutions is a welcome beginning (by whom?) of quality functioning of schools in Romania. – Read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro