PM of Republic of Moldova attends opening of university year in Timisoara: Big challenge - the young to return home

Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova Maia Sandu, who is currently paying a visit to Timisoara, where she participated as a guest of honour in the opening of the new university year at West University of Timisoara (UVT), on Saturday told AGERPRES that the young people who graduate in Romania do not usually return home and this is a big challenge for the authorities in Chisinau. "The graduates don't usually return. In general, we have this problem that the young people from the Republic of Moldova don't come back after graduating in Romania, for they don't think they have a future at home. This is the big challenge facing the authorities in Chisinau, to restore people's faith and especially the young people's faith that they have a future at home," said Sandu. Maia Sandu received the Gold Medal of the UVT. Rector Marilen Pirtea underscored that the University recognizes the merits of the Moldovan PM in promoting education, European and Transatlantic values. "Beyond the flower bridge between Romania and the Republic of Moldova, I am certain that we are going to build a bridge in the education field too, which will be the true bridge between the two sister countries," said Pirtea. The Prime Minister from Chisinau thanked UTV for the distinction and for the fact that the University in Timisoara pays attention to what happens in the Republic of Moldova. "I am glad that you appreciate our efforts to build a rule of law state, a democratic society. You know that we go through difficult times, we fight for the little democracy that we have today in Chisinau and we try to strengthen it, We appreciated your attention and the help that the Romanian education system and the Romanian society grant us, for we need it," Sandu told a press conference. The Moldovan head of the Executive mentioned that while he was Minister of Education she tried to strengthen the Romanian-Moldovan relations and initiated several concrete projects, including in the higher education sector, and that she brought the Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance to Chisinau, to help with the reorganisation of the education system. "Now I want to continue and increase the number of such projects. We thank you for accepting students from Moldova. We know that there have been many students from Moldova who came to UVT and we hope that this trend will continue. (...) I discussed about the possibility of a joint project in what concerns the educational curriculum. (...) For I think that we need to discuss about how we can have the best notebooks and maybe we can make a common effort with the experts in education from Romania. I believe there are many fields in which we can work together, especially considering that we are a small country, with very small resources, and we would like such joint efforts to also contribute to the improvement of quality and boosting efficiency in education," explained Maia Sandu. "There are two Moldovan student associations in Timisoara, in UVT we collaborate very well with, and us, the UVT leadership, always promoted all the initiatives and events that they had in Timisoara. We encourage such actions and we even decided to have them as the main ambassadors for us among their smaller colleagues back in the Republic of Moldova, in a campaign meant to convince others to come to study at the UVT too," specified Marilen Pirtea. AGERPRES (RO - author: Otilia Halunga, editor: Claudia Stanescu; EN - editor: Cristina Zaharia)