The Ministry of Education and Research is ready to establish professional partnerships in the field of academic and professional development as this actually determines the quality of the educational process, offers teachers the professional opportunity to see different training environments that can be adapted in the national educational system. In the case of the Moldovan-Romanian partnerships, teachers have the opportunity to discuss with their counterparts from Romania the faced challenges, the teaching part, which should be discussed, known, when you are in the process of reviewing, developing policy documents in general education, Corina Lungu, senior consultant at the Ministry of Education’s General Education and Lifelong Learning Policies Division, stated in a public debate hosted by IPN News Agency.
Corina Lungu said that the current edition of the training programs is intended for Romanian language teachers of schools with teaching in the language of national minorities. “It is a very delicate teaching context. It is necessary to ensure the quality of teaching and learning of the Romanian language in schools with teaching in the language of national minorities. In this connection, the Ministry of Education and Research has developed this program that comes to strengthen the professional training of teachers who, on the one hand, are involved in the teaching process in general education. On the other hand, these teachers also participate in the process of studying the Romanian language for adults, which also has certain teaching aspects that can be discussed within these activities that are offered by counterparts from Romania,” said the representative of the Ministry of Education and Research.
Corina Lungu noted that the mastery of a teacher is to keep a balance between the academic and the teaching part of a subject. However, the Romanian language and literature teachers of schools intended for nonnative speakers have a double mission – to maintain this balance and also to develop students’ interest and open their hearts to the Romanian language. “And these programs, which actually come to complete the educational experience of these teachers, are structured in such a way and include both activities, lectures by different people with a name and a status in the academic knowledge of the Romanian language. On the other hand, they include activities for knowing the Romanian language from a cultural viewpoint and these activities come to professionally inspire our colleagues who benefit from these training courses. This, in fact, was the intention and idea of the Ministry of Education when this cooperation was discussed and established,” said the senior consultant of the General Education and Lifelong Learning Policies Division.
According to her, culture and intercultural communication represent that pillar and that target that, once achieved, can ensure the intercultural cohesion of all citizens living in the Republic of Moldova, regardless of whether they are part of ethnic minorities or not. “This thing is educated through concrete things. And this is the mission not only of a teacher in a school community, but it is also the mission of the entire community. This is why the concept of multilingual education is important to be discussed and applied in the respective educational institutions,” noted Corina Lungu.
The official also said that the concept will be implemented in a staggered, prepared way because it is important to have the professional acceptance of the other mates, of teachers of geography, history, civic education, mathematics, so as to have this combined teaching, which would ensure, on the one hand, practice of speaking the Romanian language, of comprehension and communication outside the Romanian language class. This would later ensure the extension of the Romanian language in localities that are predominantly inhabited by other national minorities. International experience and European experience show that this concept yields results and has an impact only through acceptance and involvement. This concept was put on several occasions on the agenda of the Ministry of Education as an indicator that was going to happen, but achieving a result also depends on the effort and interest of all the parties,” stated Corina Lungu.
The public debate entitled “Moldovan-Romanian partnership in continuous training of teachers” was the 13th instalment of the project “Double integration through cooperation and information. Continuity”, funded by the Department for Relations with the Republic of Moldova. The content of this debate does not represent the official position of the Department for Relations with the Republic of Moldova.