From the first year of study, I remained a teacher the possibility of refusal. That when I can’t quite get my head around what’s going on in the system, I’ll try something else. In the tenth year, with a relative accumulated experience, with the title – for some – irrelevant, Doctor of Professor, this aspect has not changed. I’m still motivated by the possibility of opting out, that when I feel that the “professor time” on my bio has lost its relevance, I can try something else. It may be a creepy tactic, but it worked for me. However, this is not a normal strategy. And unsustainable in the long term. Maybe when I decide to repurpose professionally, I won’t have the resources I need. And therefore, the education system gets an extra charred teacher.

I can’t say that some top-down action motivated me, convinced me that my activity had a long-term perspective (“indefinite term”, quoting the formula from the employment contract). Not even during the period during which we assure that the teachers received everything they asked for[1]. Vice versa. Temporary, unpredictable are still characteristics of the system of pre-university education.

Many teachers in Romania have lost confidence in “change from above”. In government measures to meet the needs of students and teachers. Therefore, the need for “bottom-up” changes from each department is emphasized. Agree, to some extent. Because in a centralized system, such as the system of pre-university education in Romania, the initiative “from below”, from the departments, within each educational institution, at a certain moment faces decisions “from above”, from the governors. And, quite often, the measures adopted at the center, inferior legislation, affect even the uninterrupted work (few and rare, as it is believed) of some departments and within some educational units.

This also applies to the Ordinance on Emergency Situations, in which is assumed the conditions for awarding an allowance for a doctor’s degree are established: “For employees with a doctor’s degree, the allowance for a doctor’s degree is set at the rate of 50% of the minimum basic salary.” for each country is guaranteed a payment that is given monthly only if he performs his activities in the field in which he has a position and if he has a set of objective and quantified characteristics given in the job description that allow a monthly verification method, in whose activity is additionally capitalized”[2].

This is despite the findings of the Legislative Council that the aforementioned amendment “gives the proposed measure an arbitrary character”, believing that it “needs to be cancelled, since the proposed wording does not meet the condition of predictability of the norm, and therefore violates the provisions of Part 1 of Art. (5) of the Constitution in terms of the principle of legality”, as well as “the provisions of Art. 1 paragraph (3) of the Basic Law, in terms of the principle of legal security and hope (legitimate expectation)“[3].

In the text of the order, nothing is mentioned about the duties to be performed by a teacher with the academic title of doctor. As a result, the way was opened for some speculations and hermeneutic exercises on the text of the Emergency Decree. What did they want to convey to the authorities? How can we satisfy their will?

Indeed, there is a story behind every doctoral dissertation. For some, it is a story of impersonation, for others, it is an intellectual work. However, until proven otherwise, there is no known case of any pre-university teacher having plagiarized a doctorate. Big cheaters belong to other spheres. Therefore, in the following, I mention the cases of teachers who, thanks to their activities during doctoral studies and, subsequently, supporting and possibly publishing doctoral work, brought additional knowledge to the researched field.

How can one monitor how a professor with a scientific title of doctor performs objective, quantified and verified duties? A doctoral dissertation is more than a thesis. These are the results of research, but the doctorate is based on a vast intellectual laboratory, an assumption of the scientific methodology that the holder of the title of doctor will apply throughout his professional career, and much of the place of work of the doctoral student remains unknown. to others However, this fully contributes to its intellectual formation, and in the case of teachers, to the intellectual formation of the main beneficiaries of the educational system – students. And this transfer of skills and knowledge takes place in the daily work of teachers, in their interaction with students in classrooms, during lessons.

The context in which the skills and knowledge acquired during doctoral studies are transferred to students cannot be predicted. Those who demand control over such “assignments” are in a parallel reality to that of classrooms. The contextualization, the connections, the reading recommendations that a professor might make as a result of painstaking doctoral research cannot be predicted or tracked.

For example, in the case of a professor with a doctorate in history, a class discussion about the French Revolution, about the genesis of nations, about theories about the nature of totalitarianisms, about Romanian intellectuals of the interwar period, offering a perspective that goes beyond some platitudes in school textbooks, it is objective or not?

Recommended reading of some lesser-known but extremely relevant authors for research questions, discussion with students based on these readings, can this be considered “quantifiable assignments”?

Is it possible to test a critical approach to historical information, a vision of past events, developed over years of reading and hermeneutics of published or unpublished historical sources? If so, who will be the evaluator and what will be the evaluation method? _Read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro