Policies regarding teacher education

EU POLICIES
Within the EU, each member state is responsible for the organisation and curricula of its
education and training institutions and systems, but the EU Commission collaborates with
member states to raise the quality of teaching and learning. It does so by facilitating the
exchange of information and experience between policy makers.
The shared idea at EU level is that the best teaching practice involves working with others and
not in isolation and, experimenting through collaboration and sharing ideas. The main idea here
is how to promote effective partnerships, create and sustain learning communities.
So, how does the EU support the development of policies for the teaching profession?
 through its working group ET2020 (Education and training 2020) which has a broad
mandate to develop and improve quality of school education systems by enhancing
innovation and inclusion and
 through the Erasmus+ programme, which provides significant contributions to European
cooperation projects promoting mobility for teachers and pupils
The Commission seeks to encourage Member States to improve the quality of their education
and training systems publishing the position of Member States and by stimulating debate on
subjects of common interest.

ROMANIA
SLIDE 2
The table was taken from OECD REVIEWS OF EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT IN
EDUCATION: ROMANIA 2017, p. 39
Romania’s education system is centralised. All key responsibilities for education strategy and
delivery are concentrated within the Ministry of Education and Research. Several specialised
bodies provide input to the ministry, but there is no fully independent evaluation body.
Locally elected authorities play very little role in the design and delivery of education policies.
The Ministry directly steers and monitors the implementation of national policies at the local
level through the County School Inspectorates.
Since the revolution of 1989, which marked the end of the communist regime, the Ministry has
had over 20 ministers, which has led to difficulty in achieving coherence and consistence in
policy making. Despite recent reforms to increase their autonomy, schools’ decision-making
authority continues to be limited.
SLIDE 3
In Romania, career development is extensively regulated and lifetime employment is largely
guaranteed. Because teachers cannot easily be removed for unsatisfactory performance, the
quality of teachers depends mainly on setting high standards for entering teacher preparation
programmes and for the quality of initial preparations.
School autonomy for selecting teachers
Schools also lack influence over other important dimensions of teaching and learning. Legally,
schools in Romania have some autonomy over the curriculum and can choose up to one-third of
the curriculum taught, called “optional subjects”, but in practice, this flexibility is rarely used.
Requirements for entry into the teaching profession
During recent years, there has been a constant decreasing trend regarding the numbers of people
who want to become teachers. Public spending on education is very low- Romania’s public
expenditure on primary and secondary education is the lowest of all the EU countries.
The Teaching Staff Statute that forms part of the National Education Law sets the rules for
recruitment, salary levels, career progression and training as well as teachers’ rights and
obligations.
Teachers in Romania are required to complete at least a bachelor’s degree in order to be able to
teach middle school and a master’s degree in order to teach high school. There’s also a
requirement of completing two semesters in initial teaching education.
New teachers must pass a probation appraisal, which includes two County School Inspectorate
inspections (4 classes each) and oral and written examinations in order to become permanent
teachers. The aspiring teachers are graded for each of the tasks and then they are ranked
according to their average. The Ministry of education publishes a list of available teaching jobs
and these are distributed among teachers according to the previous ranking. So the higher the
grade, the better chances of finding a teaching job in a good school.
In order to advance, and get higher salaries, teachers have to take other two oral and written
examinations, plus the corresponding inspections, throughout their career, usually 4 years apart.
However, the initial preparation that Romanian teachers receive offers less preparation,
especially in teaching practice, than in other EU countries.
The Law of Education has the potential of optimizing the educational system, but the important
decisions regarding the teacher training were systematically postponed from their
implementation, a situation discourages the potential candidates for the teaching profession.

It would be interesting to see what type of credentials/licensing is required in your own contexts
so I’m going to put a link in the chat to a poll.