Victor Tvircun: The residential system reform in the first year was successful

The implementation of the reform of the residential childcare system brought significant changes during the first year, Minister of Education Victor Tvircun said at the meeting of the Investigative Journalists’ Club on November 6. According to the minister, the number of family-type children’s homes has doubled in the given period, from 22 at the start of this year to 47. The state doubled the monthly allowances and trebled the yearly allowances for looking after children placed in family-type children’s homes, Victor Tvircun said. The minister stressed the importance of the monitoring of the 67 Moldovan residential institutions carried out in concert with UNICEF, which revealed what institutions can be renovated and optimised and which should be closed. The boarding school in Carpineni, Hancesti district, is the first residential institution to see a restructure. Three establishments will be closed down during the school year 2007-2008, the minister said. UNICEF Representative in Moldova Ray Virgilio Torres said that the number of new children in residential institutions has halved in 2007, while the number of institutionaliaed children in the six pilot regions where the reform was implemented (Hancesti, Falesti, Floresti, Straseni, Telenesti and Balti) has fallen by 25%, the UNICEF Representative said. Ray Virgilio Torres underlined that the reform does not envisage only the modification of the legislation and transformation of the institutions, but also the change of the attitude and mentality of the parents that consider that it is the duty of the state to educate and bring up their children. After examining thoroughly the situation of every child apart, 185 families took their children at home and 172 families were helped not to give their children to boarding schools. The Government has implemented the reform of the residential childcare system during a year with support from UNICEF and the European Union. The aim of the reform is to reduce the number of children raised separately from the family by reintegrating the children in boarding schools or children’s homes into the natural or extended family or by preventing the institutionalisation of the children. Currently, the 67 residential institutions are home to over 11,500 children. As many as 10,000 of them have one or both parents alive.