PM Florin Citu supports dual education and competition for funds between research centers

On Friday, Prime Minister Florin Citu expressed his support for dual education, but also for the competition for funding between research centers, agerpres reports.

The clarifications were made during a conference organized by the Romanian-German Chamber of Commerce (AHK Romania) and the German Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations, with the support of the Association of German Chambers of Industry and Commerce e. V. (DIHK).

The Prime Minister stated that education and health are priorities for the government and recalled that the National Recovery and Resilience Plan provides for 3.6 billion euros for the implementation of the "Educated Romania" programme. He also said he supports competition for funding between research centers.

"When it comes to research, I think there's a lot to be done. Personally, I envisage research centers near universities. This is the system I prefer. I also prefer these research centers to compete for funding. I strongly believe that only through competition for funds can we achieve something in the field of research. (...) We should make sure that the money allocated to research produces something. (...) Only competition brings the best results. Otherwise, we will allocate money to research centers, without any results. I think it is something that not only Romania understands. There is an understanding across Europe that research must be funded, but that on the other hand there must be something tangible, and the centers must compete for funding," the prime minister said.

At the same time, he pointed out that, in terms of vocational education, there are models of collaboration at the local level that can be taken over.

"We don't have to reinvent the wheel. So when it comes to vocational education, we already have very good practices in Romania. We have companies, some of them German, that have already created systems: high schools are in proximity and students are trained for these companies or for others who need people in the field. What we need to do is take this practice and expand it across the country. We'll see how it will be financially supported, but I don't want to do anything differently. This works. And I saw it in Maramures, Satu Mare, Brasov or in Timisoara," said Citu.

The prime minister said that the Kurzarbeit mechanism will be maintained even after the state of alert is over.

"The Kurzarbeit mechanism will be maintained. We have improved it, we will see how the new variant works. If it needs improvements, we will continue to improve it. But it will be maintained after the state of alert," Citu said.

As regards the implementation of the Green Deal objectives, the Prime Minister showed that Romania supports these desiderata, but showed that they cannot be implemented by all states in the same rhythm.

"This is another challenge. Romania fully supports the Green Deal, but Romania is starting off, like a few other states, from another point. For us, the speed of implementing the Green Deal objectives comes with a social cost. There is, of course, support in this regard through funds from the European Union and we must ensure that they arrive on time, but we will also make sure that areas in Romania where there will be social costs develop faster, that these areas are priorities for investors. We don't want to leave anyone behind. (...) We know it's a global problem, everyone acknowledges this. We all have to do our duty, but I think Romania and a few other countries have a different speed to achieve that goal," Prime Minister Citu went on to say.