The situation in the education sector in Moldova is worrisome event if the country pledged to guarantee high-quality education and to promote opportunities of learning throughout life alongside the 193 UN member states. According to studies carried out by the Institute for Public Policy, the young people early leave the education system at an increasing pace, the job matching training rate has decreased and there is a risk that there will no teachers in education institutions during the next five years.
The transformation of the “school of the past into the school of the present” was discussed in a workshop staged by the Community for High-Quality Education, which is an initiative of Soros Foundation - Moldova, in partnership with Influencers Hub Moldova, IPN reports, quoting a press release of the Foundation.
Lucia Aprodu, president of the Senate of Soros Foundation - Moldova, said education in Moldova needs a profound reform. “By founding the Community for High-Quality Education, we intend to lay the basis for a broad dialogue between the young people, teachers, education experts and specialists from other areas so as to find the most suitable and, more important, most achievable solutions to the problems faced in the education system,” stated Lucia Aprodu.
“We want a change in the way in which education is perceived and also in the way in which the education services are provided,” said Artur Gurău, president of the Digital Communication Network. He noted that today the students can learn more through Youtube or other social networking sites than in classrooms. In this regard, the opinion leaders online can become the voice of students and teachers.
The representatives of Influencers Hub advocate a new approach to the school curriculum based on the individual development of students’ potential. “Statistics show that not all the subjects taught at school are necessary later in life,” said Ion Mocan, co-founder of the Rockit Academy. “It’s time to cultivate in the young generation such skills as complex problem solving, critical thinking and creativity. These are actually also stipulated in the Agenda 2020 of the World Economic Forum.”
Education experts say that to build an education system that would meet the needs and expectations of each stakeholder – from student, parent and teacher to decision makers in education – a continuous dialogue is needed to formulate and consider different opinions.
“The opinion polls are one-way communication. Everyone has own, specific expectations of the education system. To improve it, we need a public area for discussions and this can be created through the involvement of all the interested sides,” said sociologist Petru Negură, a teacher at the Moldova Free International University.
The Community for High-Quality Education aims to consolidate a community formed of different players of society, both from the education system and from outside it, so as to find common solutions for optimizing the processes that take place in education and to improve their quality.
