Homeschooling the next big trend in Romania?
A well-known artist couple in Romania has withdrawn their child from school and are having her schooled at home. This has triggered a lively debate about whether homeschooling is better than sending children to regular schools. Some commentators fear the erosion of the school system. Others say there are already too many private lessons after school.
Dangerous encouragement to drop school
The actor parents may be setting a fatal example for other Romanians, columnist Iulian Leca writes in Ziare:
“I believe there is no clearer sign of how fragile and sick a society is than the growing tendency towards isolation. A characteristic of this trend is the way more and more people are rejecting the healthcare and school systems. … The problem with our society is that the success of such ideas exacerbates the already widespread distrust of the education system and encourages others to drop out of school. … So it's all the more tragic that the state is not reacting at all to these tendencies. The government remains silent, as if it were an accomplice. All it has done is change the curriculum once more, which only reinforces this tendency.”
Private lessons are no better solution
Even pupils at state schools often receive additional lessons outside school, România Liberă writes pointing to Romania's private coaching culture:
“Parents who have money double the number of lessons their children receive with private lessons from the sixth grade on. The child goes to school, spends five or six hours there and then the merry-go-round of private lessons begins. Maths, Romanian, English, French, drawing, music, basketball, ballet, and so on. Later on if the child lives in a big city he or she may even have a chance of philosophy lessons. All this happens in the children's free time and is paid for by parents. This, too, is a kind of home schooling, only that the child is stressed and tired because it has more than eight hours' of schooling - longer than adults work.”