The Ministry of Education didn’t manage to ensure a balance between the supply and demand of teachers at all the levels of the education system and to increase the attractiveness of the teaching profession, shows an audit report on education system services that was presented in the November 22 meeting of the Audit Office, IPN reports.

Thus, the audit revealed the lack of a forecast of teaching staff necessities and of a long-term national plan over these necessities. There is also no common approach to forecast formulation at the level of local specialized education bodies.

Consequently, the vacancies in 2016 were 61.5% occupied, a decrease of 3.1 percentage points on 2015. At the level of territorial-administrative units, the given figure this year varied from 5.1% to 100%.

There are particular stimuli provided by the government to attract young people to work in the education sector. But they do not have the expected effect. In 2012-2015, only 49.1% or 1,293 of the assigned 2,631 graduates of teacher-training education institutions were employed according to the needs of the state.

In the period, 44 young specialists left the education system before the three-year assignment term expired. Of these, 22 didn’t pay back the rent and maintenance allowances paid to them. These costs came to about 258,000 lei.

Among the causes for such a situation, the Audit Office team enumerates the impossibility of offering the young specialists a full teaching norm, the unattractive salary (up to 3,000 lei) and the poor infrastructure in rural areas. The report also mentions the lack of a formula for calculating tuition fees.

Minister of Education Corina Fusu thanked the Audit Office for the performed analysis. She said that in the middle of the implementation term of the Education Code, in the first quarter of 2017, most of the secondary documents and regulations that derive from this and other education strategies and development programs will be worked out and approved.

The minister noted that the attractiveness of the teaching profession and motivation of the young specialists to remain in the education system can be ensured only with the effort of all the central and local authorities and by improving the living standards in the country, especially in rural areas.