EduMin Popa says additional commitment appropriations to be made available for ROSE project

Education Minister Valentin Popa said on Wednesday that a government decision will be issued to provide additional commitment appropriations for the ROSE project.

"This project aims to help reduce dropout in secondary and tertiary education and to increase the rate of passing the Baccalaureate exam. With a total funding of 200 million euros, the project, which has been running for seven years, combines interventions in schools and faculties or universities funded by systemic interventions in pre-university education in areas such as curriculum, assessment, teacher training and school leadership. It is true that there is some delay in running this program, but these days we have agreed with the finance minister and the other colleagues in the government to issue a government decision that would considerably add to the commitment appropriations allocated for this project, because the national budget law allows us to do so only for projects that are financed by re-payable external loans, Popa explained.

He emphasised the role played by the World Bank's expertise in the development of educational policies in Romania since the 1990s.

"The Education Ministry has consolidated a strategic partnership with the World Bank by implementing system reform projects as well as technical assistance projects," said Popa.

The minister attended the release of the "World Development Report 2018: Learning to Realize Education's Promise" on Wednesday.

President Iohannis also participated in this event and said that Romania faced a demographic crisis amplified by a high level of school dropout and low participation in formal higher education, criticising the insufficient funding of the ROSE project.

"Maybe it's not the time now to focus our attention on credit systems for higher education studies, while neglecting the funding of other projects that have already begun to increase equity in pre-university education," Iohannis said, pointing to insufficient funding for the ROSE project. AGERPRES (RO - author: Roberto Stan, editor: Claudia Stanescu; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Adina Panaitescu)