Continuous teacher training is crucial for ensuring the quality of education within a state and for adapting to the continuous changes in education. By participating in continuing education programs, teachers update their knowledge and skills to remain relevant and effective in teaching school subjects. The Republic of Moldova has a fruitful partnership with Romania in the continuous training of teachers, at the current stage of those who teach Romanian in schools for nonnative speakers, and an example of this is the Teach Tool implemented in the Moldovan educational system, with the support of trainers from Romania. The participants in IPN’s public debate “Moldovan-Romanian partnership in continuous training of teachers” discussed the curricular reform, implicitly, the curricular reform from the perspective of continuous training of teachers.
Corina Lungu, senior consultant at the Ministry of Education’s General Education and Lifelong Learning Policies Division, told about her own experience in the field of vocational training, which dates back to 2000. Then, together with a group of teachers, she participated at the Crevedia School in Bucharest in a teaching and academic training course referring to the educational process.
“I want to confirm the Ministry of Education’s readiness to establish professional partnerships in academic and professional development as this actually determines the quality of the educational process, the possibility of teachers to have the professional opportunity to see different training environments that can be adapted in the national educational system. It also offers an opportunity to discuss with counterparts from Romania the challenges, the teaching side, which should be discussed, known, when you are in the process of reviewing, developing policy documents in general education,” stated Corina Lungu.
According to her, in the current edition of the training programs, emphasis is placed on Romanian language teachers in schools with teaching in the language of national minorities. “It is a very delicate teaching context. It is necessary to ensure the quality of teaching and learning of the Romanian language in schools with teaching in the language of national minorities. In this connection, the Ministry of Education and Research has developed this program that comes to strengthen the professional training of teachers who, on the one hand, are involved in the teaching process in general education. On the other hand, these teachers also participate in the process of studying the Romanian language for adults, which also has certain teaching aspects that can be discussed within these activities that are offered by “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iasi, which is the host. It is a continuous training offer for the colleagues of the Republic of Moldova as regards teaching aspects of the specifics of learning the Romanian language in the enumerated contexts,” said the representative of the Ministry of Education and Research.
Director of the National Institute for Education and Leadership Viorica Andritski is convinced that continuous training remains, along with initial training, the main strategy to maintain the qualification of teachers in the educational system. In this connection, there is a network of initial and continuous training institutions in the country, which, for their part, concluded partnership agreements with several institutions in Romania and other European countries.
“In our case, we are happy to have beautiful partnership relations with the educational institutions of Romania. And when we talk about studying the Romanian language, this partnership is very important as our teachers can compare the models they learn within the training programs of the providers of our country and can also learn good practices from Romania, bring them to our country so that they take root and we achieve better results,” stated Viorica Andritski.
She noted that she had several nice experiences in various activities within the Moldovan-Romanian partnerships. “The thing I understood there is that we have a lot in common. We also have joys, we also have moments that are similar in terms of good results, but we also have pretty much the same worries as those in Romania. It is precisely these meetings that help, through discussions, to find solutions that would be suitable for schools in Moldova, but also for schools in Romania, especially since the educational institutions in Romania are more advantaged, given that they participate in various international projects. This participation also develops teachers from multiple perspectives and these good practices are also beneficial to our teachers who later go to Romania,” said the director of the National Institute for Education and Leadership.
Cristina Cambur, a teacher at “Gavril Gaidarji” High School in Comrat, said that she came to this institution 11 years ago and it was difficult for her because she graduated from a high school with teaching in Romanian, graduated from “Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu” State University in Cahul and was also going to complete her master's degree at the Lower Danube University of Galati. “As I went there with particular literary, grammatical norms, it was harder for me to become accepted, because the requirements I had for my pupils were probably too high. They expected my requirements to be lighter,” stated Cristina Cambur.
Her master’s diploma refers precisely to the training of Romanian language teachers in ATU Gagauzia and within these studies she did huge research on the subject. Finally, over the years, straggling together with the students, she managed to demonstrate the need to know the Romanian language. Namely because it brings more opportunities, helps in choosing a job and, also, employment is simpler.
“This work of mine and of my students yielded results. Even last year, when taking the Baccalaureate exams, only my students, from all over Gagauzia, had the highest grades, with an average of 7.64. It was believed that this result would never be achieved. Since then, the students come with more love. They agree to study, to get even more involved in projects. I think I managed to arouse interest in studying the Romanian language. Today the students go to faculties, even if they graduated from an institution with teaching in Russian. They are admitted to faculties in Chisinau with teaching in Romanian. Yes, it is difficult for them, but some have already graduated. They enjoy a great advantage of knowing the Romanian language at a high level,” said the teacher.
The public debate entitled “Moldovan-Romanian partnership in continuous training of teachers” was the 13th instalment of the project “Double integration through cooperation and information. Continuity”, funded by the Department for Relations with the Republic of Moldova. The content of this debate does not represent the official position of the Department for Relations with the Republic of Moldova.
