There is incoherence in the Education Code. Education is state guaranteed, but the configuration of the school network was shaped by the local authorities. Consequently, the Ministry of Education lost some powers. Such an opinion was stated by the director of the Education Program of the Institute of Public Policy Anatolie Gremalski in the talk show “Moldova live” on the public TV channel Moldova 1, IPN reports.

According to him, formally the Ministry of Education is responsible for ensuring universal access to education. The Government finances education, but the decisions are taken at the local level. “In my opinion, this is a system error that should be considered very well. We want to decentralize education and to transfer the powers to the local bodies because they know best the situation. At the same time, the local bodies should assume particular responsibility and should not optimize the schools mechanically,” stated Anatolie Gremalski.

He also said that the idea of the reform was to ensure access to education of a high quality, not to save money.

Head of the Pre-University Education Division of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Research Valentin Crudu said the impact of the education reform is to be assessed by February 1, 2018. The indicators were already approved and sent to the local competent bodies for assessment. “The education reform should be assessed. It is very important for us to understand if this reform brought benefits and was necessary from economic viewpoint, if this money was all invested in education,” stated Valentin Crudu.

According to the representative of the Ministry of Education, this assessment hasn’t been carried out so far because the school reform was made the responsibility of the local public authorities of the first and second levels. In this regard, the Education Code is to be modified as so that all the events in schools are coordinated, including with the Ministry.