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Mandas Vergu, Melania
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4 articles of this author have been cited in the European Press Review so far.
Private university disregards students
The Romanian Ministry of Education is accusing the country's largest private university Spiru Haret of having run a large number of non-accredited branches both in Romania and abroad for many years. Now the ministry has sent in the police to interrupt the university's final exams.The daily Gândul comments: "The despair of the young people [students] who see their hopes of getting a job dashed [because they are unable to take their final exams] is justified. There is only one culprit responsible for their despair and their fury: the Spiru Haret university, which has been allowed to engage in chaotic and illegal practices, showing contempt for everything in Romania and above all for its own students. If we followed the law to the letter, we would have to declare all degrees conferred by non-accredited faculties at Spiru Haret between 2002 and 2009 invalid."
» full article (external link, Romanian)
More from the press review on the subject » Romania
Romanian universities must be modernised
Following a journalists' conference on university policy in Paris, the daily newspaper Gândul argues that although Romania has introduced bachelor and master degree courses at its universities, it hasn't solved the problems: "It is useless to undertake structural changes but in essence leave everything as before. This is the bad news: we have brought the same deficiencies that have been plaguing us for 18 years into the new structure: antediluvian courses and subjects, chalk-and-blackboard teaching methods from the Dark Ages, labs from the times of communism and, worse still, a relationship between students and professors that is still based on the authoritarian model of the all-knowing teacher and the subservient student. Moreover, corruption and moral decline [are pervasive], with professors who sell good grades for oral sex and students who come to university expecting exam results to pop out of Father Christmas's sack like gifts."
» full article (external link, Romanian)
More from the press review on the subject » Europe, » Romania
Education budget cuts
Melania Mandas Vergu comments on the cuts in Romania's education budget: "For eleven months we've been almost deafened by the praise for Tarceanu's Cabinet - those patrons of Romanian schools. There wasn't a speech which didn't mention the fact that for the first time since 1989, education was receiving adequate - or even ample - funding. But yesterday's government session put an end to any hope of consistent political action in this area: the education budget was cut by 130 million euros in one go. ... Of this sum that was stolen from our schools yesterday, 100 million euros were to be spent on didactic material. In concrete terms this means each school would have been able to buy new blackboards, lockers for sport equipment, maps and materials for chemistry and physics lessons, microscopes, CDs or other necessary materials. But these little things - which account for the quality of lessons in other European countries - are dismissed as frivolities and luxuries here in Romania."
» full article (external link, Romanian)
More from the press review on the subject » Romania
Bribery at schools
Last week a Romanian school teacher was caught taking a hefty bribe from a pupil in exchange for a good grade during an exam. Melania Mandas Vergu comments: "I don't know exactly what goes on in the head and heart of a pupil when he hears his teachers preaching about honour, fairness and other moral values, knowing that his straight A average was bought for a couple of million lei. He knows this because he's heard his mother and father talking about it. The child knows that adults lie and he's confused because he hasn't yet learned to say one thing and do the opposite. But he will - after all, he goes to school!"
» full article (external link, Romanian)
More from the press review on the subject » Romania
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