Alina Neagu

Romania, the deep gap between rural and urban education By: Alina Neagu Komorebi Post- The situation of the Romanian education system has been deteriorating. In addition to the decreasing number of children attending school in rural areas, poor working conditions for teacher, lack of facilities in public schools and the inclusion of minorities in the education system are key challenges. When looking at official numbers by the National Institute of Statistics (INS), the number of students drop out has increased from the period of 1990 to 2014 by 1.8 million, According to Save the Children the rate reached to 12.1 percent last year. President of the Federation of Free Trade Unions in Education, Simion Hăncescu declared that Romania is the only country in the European Union where teachers are not required to hold a specialization studies degree. Furthermore, Romania ranks at the top in the European Union for functional illiteracy- According to Eurostat data, reading and writing skills are insufficient and at a basic level that doesn’t satisfy daily practices and employment tasks— with 40% of pupils unable to understand a text upon first reading. The gap between the rural and urban The rate of school drop out in rural areas is 26.6 percent, a signifyingly higher than the rate in urban areas and cities 6.2 percent. The financial conditioning has been addressed by many including save the children initiative as well as governmental initiatives like School-after-School trying to address the financial discriminatory factor that prevents children from attending school. Minority groups living often in rural communities continue to be largely disadvantaged in education. Poverty rates are at least four times higher and according to UNICEF the Lack of the appropriate clothing or equipment may deter Roma parents from sending their children to school. The same source, documents that girls generally marry and have children very young. As for high school only 24.54% of rural students get to be in high school. The proportion of rural students with poor English, math and science results is 2-6 times higher than those in the urban environment. Poor conditions and lack of facilities in schools There are approximately 4,500 school establishments in Romania, around 2,700 schools no longer receive children. The number has been systematically reduced due to the costs of maintaining smaller schools and bureaucracy. The lack of human resources, the poor quality of teaching materials and the critical state of some of the schools – accentuate the problem further. It's not inadmissible to have ceilings falling on students. Most of school buildings date before the 1970s and are not rehabilitated posing a serious safety problem and don't have ISU's operating authorization. Additionally, the lack of specialized laboratories and out dated equipment that no longer conform to current training standards. For example, thousands of schools’ lack basic facilities like running water, and WC facilities.