During this school year, for the first time since 1990, all the vacant posts in the education system of Chisinau municipality have been filled. Yet this is not due to the inflow of young teachers who graduated freshly from pedagogical institutions, but to the shorter hours assigned in the framework-plan by the Education Ministry and due to the effect of merging smaller classes, says Tatiana Nagnibeda-Tverdohleb, the head of Chisinau’s education department. At the beginning of this school year on September 1, 135 young specialists – 71 school teachers and 64 kindergarten educators – took up jobs in Chisinau’s education system. “Regretfully, this is not even a half of the number of young teachers assigned by the Education Ministry to the municipal education system, anyway it’s better than in the last few years”, says Tatiana Nagnibeda-Tverdohleb. The vacancies that remained uncovered by the young pedagogues have been filled with teachers of retirement age, whose share in the municipal education system increases alarmingly each year. The fresh graduates of pedagogical institutions avoid working in the municipality for economic reasons, and the principal impediment is the lack of housing. Of the 135 specialists who entered the city’s education system this year, 102 rent rooms for fees which they can hardly handle. The young teachers employed in urban areas think they are disadvantaged in comparison with their colleagues working in rural areas, because the latter receive lump-sum payments of up to 30,000 lei upon employment, while the urban teachers get 500 lei at the most, explains Tatiana Nagnibeda-Tverdohleb.