In order to maintain their jobs in the district schools, which will be created by merging schools with few pupils, teachers will have to participate in a contest. Those who won’t be promoted will either be involved in activities outside the curriculum or sacked. The announcement was made during a press briefing on Wednesday, June 29, by the Minister of Education, Mihail Sleahtitchi, Info-Prim Neo reports. “Layoffs will happen only in exceptional cases. We took care of this and the state budget has funds for social protection and redundancy compensation measures that will focus on professional rewards and reemployment in other activities”, the Minister said. According to Mihail Sleahtitchi, the reorganization will affect only schools that don’t have enough pupils to form full classes. Children from reorganized institutions will go to district schools within 3-15 km of their homes with buses provided by the Ministry of Education. He said that various activities outside the curriculum would be organized in the new schools and pupils could attend them after classes. The money obtained through the optimization of the educational system will remain in the sphere of education. The structural reform is temporary and everything depends on the demographic situation in Moldova. ,Speaker Marian Lupu stated that massive layoffs were likely to occur. Mihai Sleahtitchi however says that the Speaker misunderstood the optimization plan. He called on teachers to resist manipulation attempts like speculation and irresponsible statements. There are 1,500 primary and secondary education institutions in Moldova. According to the Ministry of Education, 370 of them will be reorganized until 2013. The number of layoffs as a result of the reform wasn’t announced.