Approximately 750 young teachers who graduated from universities or colleges were sent to work in schools in rural areas. According to the head of the Ministry of Education’s Preuniversity Education Division Valentina Chicu, the young specialists will receive a lump sum of 30,000 lei in three installments and will be invited to take part in scientific conferences and continuous formation courses organized by the Ministry.

Contacted by IPN, Valentina Chicu said the lump sum and the activities for the continuous formation of young specialists are designed to motivate the young people to work in rural areas, where the schools face shortages of teachers and where most of the working teachers are elderly. In the second half of the year, there will be staged seminars where the young teachers working in rural schools will be able to inform about the difficulties they encountered so that they are helped.

Besides the about 750 new teachers, the national schools need another over 1,000 teachers. Shortages are experienced even if almost 2,000 persons have graduated from teacher training faculties at universities and 585 young people have graduated from teacher training colleges this year. Valentina Chicu said the needed teachers will be employed by September 10. She voiced hope that the vacancies will be filled by then.

The over 1,300 preuniversity education institutions of Moldova employ about 36,000 teachers.