Radio România Internațional

Tag: Danca

Measures for the education system

On Monday most schools in Romania will open for a new school year. In other words they are in the green scenario, which involves the physical presence of students in school. This is not the case of Bucharest though, where the epidemiological situation and the big number of pupils in a class have imposed the yellow scenario, with part of the pupils going to school and the others studying online from home. There are schools across Romania which will not open their gates to pupils as they are in the red scenario, which means online education alone.

Depending on the evolution of the pandemic, things can change for the better or for the worse. Many new cases of infection have been reported daily during the summer, which fueled parents’ and teachers’ worries related to the beginning of the new school year. The specific problems created by the virus overlap the chronic ailments of the education system.

One of the biggest weakness of the education system is the lack of proper equipment. The authorities are now pressed to remedy the situation. The government increased the budget of the Education Ministry by 20 million Euros taken from the budget reserve fund to finance the National Program ‘Safe Education’.

The head of the Chancellery of the PM Ionel Dancă explained how the money would be used: “We allotted the money necessary for School Inspectorates to purchase laptops, sanitary materials and electronic devices as well as web cams and tablets, to allow the teaching staff to hold classes online if the epidemiological situation requires it.”

The government also adopted a memorandum which provides for connecting to the Internet a number of 3,150 schools as well as a decision for the employment of 500 persons in the pre-university education system, both teaching and non-teaching staff. The situation was created by the great number of retirements reported, as many teachers who were older than 60 opted for retirement in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The local authorities have to hire medical staff in the school health office and the Health Ministry will provide money for their salaries.

The opposition Social Democratic Party accuses the government of failing to properly prepare the new school year from the point of view of health safety and of failing to support the local authorities in organizing the teaching process so as to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus.

The first vice-president of the PSD Sorin Grindeanu: “4 days ahead of the beginning of school, the government has not complied with its obligations, although they could have done that during the summer. There are no tablets, no face masks, no tests for the teachers and also no textbooks in many schools.”

According to Grindeanu at present 26% of the schools do not have the infrastructure for Internet access. We recall that Romania is in full election campaign for the local elections due on September 27. (tr. L. Simion)

11 September 2020
The government is bracing up for a new school year

The government in Bucharest has earmarked 175
million Euros out of EU funds for preparing the new school year due to commence
on September 14th. The money is to be used by the local authorities
for the purchase of tablets, masks and sanitary cabins.

More than half of the money, 100 million Euros
will be used on computer tablets and other electronic devices aimed at assisting
the online education of roughly 500 thousand students, Ionel Danca, head of the
Prime Minister’s chancellery has said. The government will invest 50 million
euros in the purchase of masks and disinfectants for schools and 25 million
others in mobile sanitary cabins.

The experience of last semester, when the risk
of transmitting the novel coronavirus in schools made the authorities to
suspend classes has prompted the government to also take into consideration a
worst-case scenario, with three positive persons per one thousand inhabitants
in a locality in the past 14 days. A situation like this would prompt the
authorities to close down the school in that locality and hold online courses.

In early August, when the number of daily
infections didn’t go under 1,000, the aforementioned situation was reported
only in 50 localities. Several hundred other localities became part of the
medium-risk category with between one and three people infected per thousand and
in this case, preschoolers, pupils in their first school years and students in
their last who need to take exams, will become a special priority. The others
will get online courses and are going to school in rotation. These scenarios
are to be updated constantly in keeping with the local epidemiological
situation.

Upon proposals from schools and the School Inspectorate, the
Committee for Emergency Situations is going to decide whether students will
stay at home or go to school. Here is Romania’s Health Minister Nelu Tataru
with more on this.

Nelu Tataru: We’ve
allowed the freedom, so to say, to local authorities, county school
inspectorates and public health directions to adjust the scenarios and the
regulations we imposed to every school. In the localities where children can
safely go to school, we believe it’s OK for them to go, with the observation of
certain prevention measures of course, but where there is the risk of
infection, the other two scenarios are to be applied. School has to begin
because we have children who must go to school. We’ve already had half a year
when children had to stay at home and I believe they need to socialize. The
teacher-student relation is also something very important.

In a most-positive scenario, with less than one person infected
per thousand in the past 14 days, the students’ presence in schools will be
mandatory not optional, as Education Minister Monica Anisie explains.

(translated by bill)

25 August 2020
Der Status der britischen Staatsbürger in Rumänien

Die liberale Regierung in Bukarest hat auf der wöchentlichen Sitzung, am Mittwoch, eine Dringlichkeitsverordnung über den Status britischer Bürger in Rumänien verabschiedet, für den Fall, dass Gro‎ßbritannien ohne Einigung aus der Europäischen Union austritt. Das Gesetz verteidigt auch die Interessen der rumänischen Bürger in Gro‎ßbritannien – sagte der Leiter der Kanzlei des Premierministers, Ionel Dancă:

“Wir weisen darauf hin, dass Rumänien derzeit der einzige EU-Staat ist, der keine solche Rechtsnorm hat, und dass die unvorhersehbaren politischen Entwicklungen in Gro‎ßbritannien die Verabschiedung eines solchen Rechtsrahmens dringend erforderlich machen, um zu vermeiden, dass Gro‎ßbritannien die EU ohne Abkommen verlä‎ßt und britische Bürger in Rumänien nicht über die rechtlichen Bedingungen für eine Übergangszeit bis zur Festlegung ihrer Rechte und Pflichten in Rumänien und auf der Grundlage der Gegenseitigkeit auch die rumänischen Bürger Gro‎ßbritanniens verfügen.”

Obwohl er noch nicht umgesetzt wurde, bringt der Brexit Unsicherheiten für alle EU-Bürger, insbesondere diejenigen, die im Vereinigten Königreich studieren oder arbeiten. Sie müssen rechtzeitig das Aufenthaltsrecht in diesem Land beantragen, andernfalls könnten sie zum Zeitpunkt des Brexits ausgewiesen werden. Vor kurzem hat die Pressestelle des Londoner Innenministeriums, die in der rumänischen Zeitung “Evenimentul Zilei” zitiert wird, mitgeteilt, dass etwa 1,8 Millionen Menschen Anträge auf Aufenthaltsgenehmigungen gestellt haben und dass Menschen, die sich nicht beeilt haben diese Anträge zu stellen, gefährdet sind. Die BBC präzisiert in der genannten Tageszeitung, dass all jene die kein Visum haben, jedoch “triftige Gründe” vorweisen können, eine Fristverlängerung gewährt wird, innerhalb der sie Aufenthalts- und Arbeitsrecht in Gro‎ßbritannien beantragen können.

Das britische Innenministerium kann nicht genau sagen wieviele EU-Bürger derzeit im Vereinigten Königreich leben, aber der Migrationsbeobachter schätzt, dass es 3,3 Millionen Europäer gibt, daurnter auch Rumänen. Die grö‎ßte Unsicherheit hängt jedoch mit dem genauen Datum zusammen, an dem der Brexit stattfinden wird, der bereits dreimal in dreieinhalb Jahren verschoben wurde. Der dritte Aufschub fand erst Ende letzten Monats statt und die neue Frist ist der 31. Januar 2020. Klarheit herrscht aber immer noch nicht. Im nächsten Monat finden in Gro‎ßbritannien vorgezogene Parlamentswahlen statt, deren Ergebnis auch darüber entscheiden wird, wie der Austritt des Vereinigten Königreichs aus der EU von nun an gestaltet werden soll. Der konservative Premierminister Boris Johnson behauptet, er sei der Einzige, der den Brexit zum geplanten Termin, den 31. Januar umsetzen könne, während der Oppositionsführer der Labour-Partei, Jeremy Corbyn, sagt, dass er in Brüssel ein besseres Abkommen aushandeln könne, das er einer Volksbefragung unterziehen will, wobei auch die Option, dass Gro‎ßbritannien in der EU bleiben kann, miteinbezogen werden soll.

14 November 2019