Parents in Moldova spend for their children’s education by MDL 117 more than the state spends annually

Parents in Moldova spend for the education of those over 500 thousand students about MDL 1,687 mln annually, including MDL 26 mln for private lessons, MDL 25 mln – gifts for teachers and MDL 3.7 mln for better marks, MDL 146 mln for repairing schools. At the same time, the state spends for education MDL 1,570 mln. These findings, made public on Wednesday, April 18, are included in the research “Informal payments in the pre-higher education and equal access to education”, conducted by the Institute for Public Policy (IPP) within the regional project implemented in 7 countries in concert with the polling organisation CBS-AXA, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to Natalia Vladicescu, the study author, data were collected by means of an opinion poll among 862 parents, 546 teachers, 60 principals from cities, towns and villages, as well as via interviews with 16 experts. The report reveals that the additional payments made by the parents during one school year constitute 13.3% of the financial means allotted by the state. Parents in villages spend for one student MDL 3,223 annually, and those from cities – MDL 4,725. Monthly, 32.6% of the families pay to the schools up to MDL 50, 19.6% - up to MDL 100, 4.3% - over MDL 500 and only 3.2% say they did not pay money. In what concerns the periodicity of the payments asked or expected by the teaching staff from parents, the answers of the teachers and principals are different from those given by the parents. If 50.5% of the teachers reject the phenomenon, then 40.1% of the parents say that this situation occurs once a month. At the same time, 41.8% of the parents say that teachers often put pressure on parents so that they pay supplementary money for the needs of the school. While 37.1% of parents say that teachers pay more attention to the children whose parents contributed more to the school, 81.7% of school principals and 71.4% of teachers deny this statement. At the same time, 37.8% of the parents are sure that the students from poor families are disadvantaged, although 53.3% of principals and 56.4% of teachers denied this fact. According to 43.9% of the parents, it is impossible for children to receive high-quality education if their parents did not contribute with supplementary payments to the school. According to the respondents, the most affected by the informal payments is the family, as it spends for education about 17% of the budget. The parents say that the state does not recognise the contribution made by them in order to make schools work in decent conditions. According to them, “the schools live on the back of the parents”, Also, the teachers are affected, as they “are forced to beg” due to low salaries, and the children, because the qualified teachers choose better paid jobs, and they are not always given proper education if their parents pay, or are reproved and humiliated if their parents do not pay. The respondents say that the State is the first to benefit from informal payments, because they enable to allot fewer funds for the elementary and secondary education, and the children, as they are offered education conditions, as well as the teachers, according to the parents, who have higher salaries. According to IPP director Arcadie Barbarosie, the problem addressed by the research is specific not only for Moldova, but for several transition countries. According to him, at the moment, the decision-making authorities in education consider as a normal phenomenon the supplementary payments in schools. Barbarosie gave the example of the recent statements of the head of the Municipal Department for Education, Science, Youth and Sport, Tatiana Nagnibeda, who asked the Ministry of Finance to exempt from taxes the financial contributions of the parents. “It is wrong, because the supplementary payments are not stipulated by the laws and contravene the Constitution, which provides for free education”, Barbarosie said. The persons who conducted the study will work out recommendations for the Parliament, Government, state bodies, political parties and civil society.