About 500 persons go on ANTEM’s Romanian language courses

Approximately 500 persons, most of whom are civil servants, are taking or will take from next week the Romanian language courses run by the National Association of European Trainers of Moldova (ANTEM). The attendees will finish the courses in May and will be issued with certificates approved by the Ministry of Education, Info-Prim Neo reports. In a roundtable meeting on Wednesday, ANTEM director Lucia Cucu said 25% of the participants in these courses are sure that knowledge of the official language will offer them more possibilities of developing professionally. She also said that the public authorities and civil society should make effort to motivate more persons to study the official language. Deputy Minister of Education Tatiana Potang said there should be worked out efficient strategies so that all the persons know at least to communicate in Romanian. A sum of 90,000 lei was allocated from the state budget for producing training programs and textbooks. In the future, the state plans to subsidize these courses. The ANTEM’s Romanian teaching program is 81% financed by the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities. The rest 19% represent local financing. “Knowing several languages represents comfortable mobility and means richer linguistic identity,” said Doctor Sabina Corneiciuc, lecturer and ANTEM expert. ANTEM is a nongovernmental, nonprofit and apolitical organization consisting of 46 members from Chisinau, Comrat, Ceadar-Lunga, Congaz, Basarabeasca, Taraclia, Vulcanesti, Bender, Tiraspol, Dubasari, Rybnitsa, Grigoriopol, Balti, Drochia, Soroca, Ocnita, and Briceni.