The Minister of Education and Research, Daniel David, declared on Thursday, in a press conference in Oradea, that the measures to reduce salary expenses by 10% will not apply to pre-university education and schools, adding that this was also stated on Wednesday by Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan.
On the other hand, he added that "probably some adjustments" will have to be made in the ministry, at the central level.
"We'll see. My reflex is always that you have to reduce expenses without affecting the number of people. Don't lay people off, affect salaries. Can you do this? Of course you can. Through travel, various increases and so on. But, in the area of ??teachers, in the area of ??pre-university education, in the area of ??schools, these measures will not apply. I said from the beginning and I've been saying it for a few days now and I'm glad that yesterday the prime minister also explicitly said this, that pre-university education will be exempted, but be careful, it will not be exempted as a privilege. It will be exempted because we, unlike many other systems, did what we had to do in July, through package 1. And we did it in July not because we were in a hurry. We did it in July because we were starting school in September and "If you didn't take the measures so that you could implement them from September, we wouldn't be able to implement them. In the pre-university area, I have no emotion that things will be okay," said Minister Daniel David.
Regarding salary-pension cumulation, the minister showed that it cannot be applied in the education area, the presence of retired teachers being a necessity and a plus in the system.
"We have, for example, over 3,000 retired teachers who cover classes in pre-university, primarily in the area of ??sciences, mathematics, physics, and you know, those teachers are not taking anyone's place. If retired teachers were to take the place of young people who would like to teach those classes, then, yes, you can discuss this situation of pension-salary cumulation. We do not have people to cover these classes and the presence of retired teachers is a necessity and a plus in the system," he emphasized.
Daniel David added that in the pre-university system "we have nothing to reduce, we have streamlined the system."
"As I said publicly, at this moment we must stabilize and gradually, as the country stabilizes and develops economically, grow as a budget, because we must gradually approach, in the coming years, that percentage that we have announced for years, we have never reached, if you like, 6% of GDP, but, in fact, in the law, now, it is 15% of the general consolidated budget on expenses," the Minister of Education mentioned, answering a question.
At the same time, he indicated that the problems regarding the settlement of transportation for teachers in rural areas are an issue that he is aware of, that he has received a lot of complaints in this regard and that he has discussed it with Prime Minister Bolojan and mayors, adding that he is trying to find a solution to comply with legal norms.
"Someone suggested to me that we return the funding through the ministry, because the new law provides for this, but the application was extended. We will find a solution for next year, either to cancel the extension or to find a mechanism through which the city halls assume the responsibilities established by law, because I know the respective situation and it is unfair for teachers. Not only unfair, it goes beyond the legal framework," emphasized Minister David.
Asked about measures to attract and retain well-trained teachers in the system, he replied that first and foremost it is about the starting salary, but also about creating those educational concentrations with larger schools, in which norms can be created that are not fragmented between 3 or 4 or even 5 school units, but, at the same time, teacher training will also have to be reconsidered.
"We followed a model in which we hyper-specialize teachers. When you look at countries that are performing well in the educational area and to which we often refer, you see that there you have a science teacher, for example, or you have a social science teacher, that is, someone who, I don't know, teaches physics, also teaches chemistry or if they teach economics, also teaches sociology. And we have also started to change this philosophy. For example, starting this academic year, we have the first two programs in double specialization history-geography and biology-chemistry, 4-year teaching programs, and those who will complete these programs will be able to go directly to teach both subjects at the middle school or high school level. There are a few things that we have started to implement or that we have started to discuss," the Minister of Education also said.
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