The scandal of plagiarism, conceits and political games have created a deep crisis in education. The best students leave the country immediately after the BAC because the local faculties and specializations are poorly rated internationally, and the prospects of a career and a motivating salary are uncertain.
After 1990, limited resources, corruption and the lack of vision of those who ruled the country caused the education system to collapse.
No university in Romania is in the top 500 in the world, according to the QS World University Rankings, the most used by employers, and this indicates that Romanian education is not yet part of the global elite with all the consequences that arise from this.
For example, in the list for the year 2024, Charles University in Prague occupies position 248, and the University of Warsaw, 260.
Romania has two Universities ranked in the top 1,000 in the world, it is the Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj, ranked 801-850, and the University of Bucharest, ranked 851-900.
In 2012, just before the era of plagiarism scandals began, the two higher education institutions had reached the top 650 in the world. Then their prestige collapsed.
During the communist period, as an effect of propaganda, the idea of a “Romanian exceptionalism” was created in the field of education, nourished by the intense promotion of good results obtained by a handful of students at international school olympiads.
After the fall of the dictatorship, in December 1989, the confidence of the population in the Romanian education system was preserved, although it no longer performed, disconnecting from reality.
The entire burden of educational performance fell on the shoulders of parents, who by paying for meditations maintained the competitiveness of some students.
But what can you see, more than 90% of them went abroad, Romanian society not having any direct benefit from their value and skill.
This process of encouraging meditations and supporting the elites led to a severe polarization of education.
Education, performance criterion for the whole country
The quality of education in high schools and universities has collapsed due to the lack of structural reform, value criteria for teachers and adaptation to the interests of students.
Excessive politicization, corruption, frequent change of Ministers of Education and lack of funding have created a deep crisis, and now social stability has come to be threatened by the poor quality of high school graduates and faculties that, for the most part, do not know how to nothing.
Added to the crisis described above is the endless scandal of plagiarism, which destroyed the reputation of several universities in the country, canceling the attempts to develop some faculties and specializations.
Educated Romania, the most important domestic policy project of President Klaus Iohannis, will have no value if in the coming years our country does not manage to have at least one university in the top 500 in the world.
You can’t count as a country without education performance. There is no way to show confidence to investors, but also to Romanians who want to return home without solving the serious problem of education.
Urgent project for Romania
Romanian education must be taken out of the mud. There is a need to finance serious study and research programs, to attract teachers from abroad, but also to keep good students in the country, to create an internal emulation through which the university’s prestige increases as quickly as possible.
Every Minister of Education has promised to make reforms, but got bogged down in a labyrinth of interests without having the power and time to achieve anything, often ruining what was working.
In my opinion, achieving the goal of having at least one University consistently in the top 500 in the world must be a country project that transcends party interests, giving the best students the opportunity to stay on place, not to leave immediately after BAC.
Tags: Romania university top world
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