Nearly 30 participants including teachers, businesspeople, youth activists and civil society representatives gathered at a roundtable hosted by KPMG to discuss the Romanian education system in the context of the recent teacher strike. Perspectives were diverse: participants spoke about the financial difficulties faced by early career teachers, bureaucracy in schools, and "pointless evaluations", as well as the respect enjoyed by teachers and existing models in other countries. Perhaps the most important conclusion is that we all need to get involved if schools are to achieve better results in the future. Romania needs a system focused on rewarding real performance, as well as attracting talented young individuals into the education system. Rethink Romania has taken on the task of orienting a part of its research and advocacy activities in this direction.
Over 20 leaders of youth organizations and representatives from the business environment discussed the phenomenon of fake news and the rise of extremist currents in society, alongside Moise Guran and Professor Matei Gheboianu. The discussions aimed to create channels of communication between young people and entrepreneurs on topics relevant to Romania's future. The event is the first in a series of debates that will use the roundtable format.
Romania's National Recovery and Resilience Plan includes a series of reforms in the field of education. One of the most notable is the comprehensive reform of dual (part apprenticeship) vocational education. In this context, on December 5th 2022 a debate and webinar was organized at the Ministry of Education, centred on the presentation of key reforms in this sector. The event was organized by Rethink Romania with the support of the Ministry of Education. Ligia Deca, the Minister of Education, Dragoș Anastasiu, the president of Rethink Romania, Sorin Decă, deputy secretary general of the Ministry of Education, spoke among others. Among other things, the new integrated consortia for dual education and the new regulations allowing the organization of university programs in a dual system were presented. Over 100 people participated in the webinar, predominantly from the business sector. Many asked questions and provided observations and suggestions on the proposed package of measures.
On September 15th and 16th, 2022 Poiana Brașov played host to Rethink Romania’s first ever summit ummit. It was the first international event in Romania that aimed at the simultaneous transformation of education and demographic policies. International and local experts, entrepreneurs, decision-makers, journalists, opinion leaders, and representatives of civil society contributed to formulating proposals and solutions in panel discussions and co-creation workshops. Some of the topics discussed at the summit formed the basis for the second Rethink summit, which is scheduled to be held in November 2023 and include originally developed content.
Among the summit's invitees were: Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă (live online intervention), Vice President of the European Commission, European Commissioner for Promoting the European Way of Life, Margaritis Schinas (live online intervention), Sandra Pralong, State Counselor, Presidential Administration, Mayor of Brașov Allen Coliban, Gintaras Steponavicius, Director (CEE +) for Cormack Consulting Group, former Minister of Education in Lithuania, Louka Parry, CEO and founder of The Learning Future. In total, almost 200 people participated in the summit, many of whom later decided to join the Rethink community.
