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The first conference under Romania's "Youth Pact" national project took place on Monday at the Iasi National College in the presence of the minister of family, youth and equal opportunities, the minister of labour and social solidarity and UNICEF officials, told Agerpres.
Organiser Cristina Chiriac, chair of the National Confederation of Women Entrepreneurship (CONAF), said that the "Youth Pact" is devised to identify educational initiatives and programmes that prevent school dropout and at the same time allow young people to finish school in order to acquire necessary skills for the labour market.
"By this approach, we want to reduce by at least 1% the rate of those who decide to abandon school and to team up with the government to find solutions that lead to a long-term reduction in school dropouts. We need training programmes that combine work preparation and technical skills with fundamental knowledge, in order to offer to more young people the opportunity to find jobs or to benefit from entrepreneurship opportunities," said Chiriac.
She added that young people who leave school school early are exposed to a greater risk of long-term unemployment, poverty and even crime.
According to her, there are over 215,000 young people in Romania who have not finished school. In the last four years, over 100,000 children in Romania have dropped out of school, the equivalent of a city like Suceava. In 2021, over 15% of young Romanians between the ages of 18 and 24 had only completed the eighth grade at most.
"Reducing the intensity of school dropouts requires solutions and, most importantly, it requires co-operation and partnership between officials, local communities and the business community, effective and inclusive actions," said Chiriac.
Present at the event, Minister of Labour and Social Solidarity Marius Budai said he would like to rename the "Youth Pact " "Pact for young people and their love of work," in order to prevent school dropout and win young people and children over to vocational schools.
He gave the example of a job exchange in Oradea, where representatives of the local business community presented not only their job offer, but also the technology the future employees will work with.
In her turn, Minister of Family, Youth and Equal Opportunities Gabriela Firea said that her ministry has established a department that will team up with local authorities to deal with children who have one or both parents working abroad and who are left in the care of grandparents or relatives.
She said that each family will be placed under an obligation to notify the local authorities in whose care they leave their children.
According to Firea, this approach will lead to the end of school dropouts.
