The parliamentary elections are coming and all kinds of promises and projects for the future stated to be popularized. It is actually normal to be so. The voters should know what the politicians intend to do. However, the latter should make sure that their promises are credible. To be credible, the politicians who are now in power, in particular, should correlate the new promises with the old ones so as to show the made progress and he achieved output.

One party, the Democratic Party of Moldova (PDM), has governed in the Republic of Moldova for nine years, without interruption , after ruling together with another several parties for six years. For nine years, without interruption, the PDM has managed the most important ministries of the country, regardless of the variation in their names and made reshuffles – the Ministry of Economy, which was named government inside the Government for its important role; and the Ministry of Social Protection, whose task is to translate the economic progress into social benefits. For eight years, the PDM has uninterruptedly held the administrative posts in Parliament, which is the most important institution in a parliamentary republic, such as the Republic of Moldova. The adoption of the legislative plans that were to ensure the predictability of the country’s development and the quality of the normative framework was the responsibility of Parliament and its administration, which is of the PDM. For almost three years, which is equal to 1/3 of the time spent in power, the government of the Republic of Moldova has been fully assumed by the PDM. All these realities should be taken into consideration when representatives of the PDM tell us their plans for the future. And not only the plans of those of the PDM, but also of those from the opposition, who, even if they cannot correlate the promises and accomplishments, at least should not dare to ignore the existing realities. Such an approach would be useful for a decent political competition and for ensuring the country’s predictable development. Or we will witness only propagandistic campaigns that will help those who have the necessary resources emerge victorious.  

We could try and adopt the aforementioned approach to the affirmations and future prospects shared by Minister of Education, Culture and Research Monica Babuc with the people. On October 4, 2018, in the program “Issue of the Day” on Canal 2 TV channel, Missis Monica Babuc made a series of statements  concerning the area of which she is in charge. The most important statement was that four years have passed since the adoption of the Education Code, but a number of provisions of the Code weren’t implemented because there weren’t the necessary conditions or absolutely necessary provisions are absent. The minister’s statements could not help us identify the essence of the problem – the Education Code, when it was drafted and adopted, was detached from the realities or the realities evolved unpredictably swiftly and the document became thus outdated?

An answer to this question is really necessary as the responsibility for the quality of the Education Code is borne also by Parliament and its administration, while the conditions needed for appropriately applying the provisions of the Education Code depend on the economic performance and the transformation of this into social benefits and protection. Namely the latter ones – social benefits and protection – shape and modulate the social optimism and the wish of young people to become teachers. That’s why Minister Monica Babuc’s plea for supplementing the Education Code so as to deal with the shortage of the over 2,000 teachers in the system should be compared with the electoral promises made by the PDM in the election campaign of 2014. Then, in 2014, the PDM presented its complex view on all the aspects of the public life, including education.

Thus, before convicting ourselves that a new vision on education is needed and that the gaps existing in the education legislation should be filled, it would be right to ask Missis Babuc to tell the citizens what the PDM delivered and what it didn’t deliver of what it promised in the education sector in 2014: a) during the first three years of the employment of young specialists, the state will pay the social insurance contributions for each young employee; b) adoption of a law on apprenticeship and establishment of permanent partnerships between vocational schools and different companies, private workshops and firms; b) introduction of vocational Baccalaureate; c) supporting of access to international Baccalaureate and promotion of its recognition in the country; d) promotion of laws for the young people to benefit from private scholarships to study; e) raising of the number of scholarships at IT specialties in state-run education institutions; f) new pay raises for teachers during the next few years; g) provision of pensions equal to the minimum subsistence level to teachers, etc. Surely, some of these promises were fulfilled, but we would like to know how Missis Babuc assesses in general the government’s performance in education? It shouldn’t be forgotten that the accomplishments in education are reliant on those achieved in the economy and the social sphere and the results here were weak. The PDM promised annual investments of 1€ billion and we know that these were 4-5 times smaller. We also know that the PDM promised to raise the average official salary two times and the rise was of only 50% officially. If such things are ascertained, we can now discuss the future adjustment of the PDM’s view on education to the new realities that are created also by the PDM.

If something like this is done, we could understand the regrets of Missis Babuc, who informed us that even if the teacher-training higher education establishments this year were graduated by over 800 young people, only 123 asked for a job and they do not yet know how many actually work after 600 of the graduates were assigned to jobs. These figures reveal a very sad reality as, even if the Government adopted the decision to raise the allowance for young specialists, from 45,000 to 120,000 lei for graduates of teacher-training universities, this is not sufficient to motivate the young people. So, the social optimism of the young teachers does not reside only in the size of the allowance, but rather in the long-term development prospects of the country.

IPN Experts