The Save Romania Union (USR) is asking the Ministers of Education and European Funds, respectively, but also the National Communications Administration and Regulation Authority and the Special Telecommunications Service to consider the possibility of adjusting EU-funded programs so that the money be used to provide tablets or laptops with 3G/4G modem for students who don't have the necessary equipment to attend online classes.
"In recent years alone, the Social Democratic government has decided to invest tens of millions of euros in various online platforms. The electronic grade book, an online school management platform, costs 48.47 million euros. The virtual library that helps devise electronic textbooks, games and other auxiliary materials cost another 49.46 million euros. Wireless Campus, intended to provide wireless equipment to 4,500 schools, is 45 million euros, and the 'Relevant Curriculum, Open Education for All' program is another 42 million euros. And in all this time, more than a thousand Romanian schools are unable to ensure the minimum hygiene conditions for the students, so that they no longer be compelled to use backyard toilets and that they should have running water to wash their hands," USR said in a release.
MEP Cristian Ghinea considers that the Liberal government does not come up with solutions, "but only with obligations that are out of touch with reality".
"A state that has failed to computerize education now imposes obligations on the parents. I've read the order of the Education Minister with the requirements for online schooling and it seems cut off from the real world. In the real world, a 12th-grader from Vaslui, who lives in a locality without broadband internet (there are still a lot in the countryside), has been threatened that he won't be allowed to sit his exams if he misses the online lessons, and this although he learns very well. The lessons he hasn't the necessary internet connection to attend. In the real world the children from the Budila commune I take care of and whom I handed out tablets, must go knocking on the door of their colleagues who have cable internet, to do their lessons. And I could go on. That's what the real world looks like," Ghinea said.
He also mentions that although almost 1.4 billion euros are allocated for the less developed regions under Axis 6 of the Human Capital Operational Program that covers "Education and Skills", "more than two thirds of the amount" are still unspent.
"An audit must be prepared, and the management of the two Intermediate Bodies that hasn't done anything for decades but squander European money for the computerization of Education - the body assigned to the Education Ministry and the one of the former Ministry of Communications, now lost in the colossus called the Ministry of Transport, Infrastructure and Communications - should be fired and held accountable," Cristian Ghinea says.
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