Education Minister Daniel David said on Monday that Romania "is doing very poorly" in terms of lifelong learning and that there was extraordinary pressure for the National Qualifications Authority to be taken over by the Ministry of Labor, considering it to be a mistake.
"Lifelong learning, we have a big problem here. I'm waiting to see what will happen with the new government, whether I will still be in the government or not, but anyway the message must be given. We are very bad at lifelong learning. As a university rector, I absolutely agree and understand the interest of employers and society in having a very high dynamic of occupations. You can't just stay in university programs. You need some occupations, niche occupations appear, until you do the university program and accredit it at ARACIS, you need other steps to take people to the labor market through those occupations. I understand this. The list of occupations is at the Ministry of Labor. It's fine. The National Qualifications Agency is at the Ministry of Education, it's fine, because in "In almost all countries, except France, where it is shared with Labor, in other countries the National Qualifications Authority is located at Education," David said in a press conference.
He mentioned that this authority establishes for various occupations coming from the Ministry of Labor, through discussions with the environment in which those occupations should function, what are the standards and competencies for each occupation, who can do training, what are the training conditions, and in this way the existing offer is qualitative.
"Quality is increasing, and an occupation or a qualification that you acquire for an occupation in Romania will be recognized at the European Union level. We felt an extraordinary pressure to return to the model of 10 or I don't know how many years ago to take over the National Authority for Qualifications in the area of ??the Ministry of Labor, which I think is a mistake. I hope we end this trend. I discovered with surprise, I was not even informed that it was happening, because such a draft emergency ordinance is under discussion, which bothered me very much. I discussed it with those in the Government leadership and blocked this project, but I was bothered by the fact that today someone could think of returning to a model that did not work and does not work anywhere in an efficient manner," said Daniel David.
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