Anticorruption officers, alongside young anticorruption volunteers, in the course of the year will travel to different localities to hold separate training courses for educational system employees, for parents and students and also activities for the general public as part of a campaign to promote integrity in education conducted by the Ministry of Education and Research and the National Anticorruption Center (NAC), IPN reports.

NAC director Iulian Rusu said the goal is to further increase the awareness of teaching staff, students and parents of the anticorruption policies and to reduce corruption in the educational system.

“Integrity is cultivated from an early age and the educational institutions are the most suitable place for raising a generation that does not allow acts of corruption to be committed. As part of this campaign, we aim to explain to the actors from the field the legal provisions concerning the fulfillment of the integrity requirements and the punishment for not fulfilling these and to warn students how important it is to be upright,” stated Iulian Rusu.

Minister of Education and Research Anatolie Topală said the authorities realize and share the people’s reasonable expectations that immediate changes will be brought about and informal payments and corruption will be eliminated from the educational system. This negative phenomenon discredits the profession of teacher and cannot be tolerated in any form.

A study presented by the Institute for Public Policy in 2020 showed that informal payments made annually by parents in general education total over 782 million lei. Estimates show the parents pay most of the money for individual lessons in the school or outside it (332.6m lei) and for supplementary notebooks and textbooks (232.8m lei). The other money is collected for presents for teachers, for school events, for sports and other types of extracurricular activities. The amounts accumulated for exams and better grades are the lowest.

Starting with the second half of 2022, the Contravention Code has regulated bribery and stipulates punishment for this, including for patents involved in the collection of funds. The persons who know possible cases of corruption in education can repot them to the national anticorruption line 0800 55555.