Reporting the successful case of the school in a poor county, where teachers have attracted European funds to motivate children to finish at least eight classes. “To see that the world can be other than that of their parents.”
In Curcani commune, Călărași, a locality with 5,300 inhabitants, of which 462 people are looking for work, usually on the minimum wage, teachers celebrate the effect of their work at the beginning: they have attracted European funds of 250,000 euros for students, so that they have a chance in addition to their parents.
Curcani, Călărași county, is 50 kilometers from Bucharest and 13 kilometers from Oltenița. Here, teachers have accessed alone European funds of over 250,000 euros, to attract students, writes the Snoop site. This, while the education in Romania has already lost 718 million euros in the PNRR, because it did not implement its initially assumed projects, as the Ministry of Education announced in August.
462 unemployed looking for work
5,300 adults and children live in turkeys, according to the pandemic census. There are those who have not left for the city or across the border.
Because I do not find jobs in the area, some make the shuttle daily in Bucharest by train or minibus. Work in cleanliness or bread factories. Others, either work with the day in the village as masonry or in vegetable greenhouses, or in the shops in the commune with terraces, where the shaft is sold for 12 lei. Some are teachers, and others have engaged in corporations, says Deputy Mayor PNL Dorel Nica.
The list of people in unemployment, who is looking for work, which the City Hall of Curcani sent in July to the County Agency for Employment (AJOFM) included 462 names-only those who announced their situation.
More than the minimum wage
The teachers in the turkeys are struggling with school dropout to bring a change in the community. They have learned to write projects alone and have attracted European funds in the last eight years.
To motivate the children to finish at least eight classes and possibly continue with the high school or a professional. And finally to earn more than the minimum wage – now around 2,500 lei in hand.
“To see that the world can be different than that of their parents,” says Romanian teacher Valentina Neagu, 43, born in turkeys.
School giving up has become a family legacy. “Over the years, there have been many who have made only eight classes,” the teacher says. Ten parents of the school students have higher education.
After the Revolution, in Călărași county, as in the whole country, many factories-such as the Siderca Combined, steel producer-did not resist in capitalism. For people confused by transition, no education was a priority.
Calarasi, in the top the poorest 5 counties in Romania
Călărași county is present in negative charts:
41% of students learn at the village
16% of the Romanian students give up education early, double compared to the EU media, the European Commission shows. Many of the rural. However, the exact data are missing.
The fact that some teachers are involved in changing things is the dressing over the wound in education. A wound that deepens, because these vulnerable children are always left behind. Of the 1.6 million students of primary and gymnasium, according to the Ministry of Education, 41% learn in the village.
For ten years, Romania has a strategy on reducing the early school leaving, ie before the eighth grade. It is known that “it is a pregnant problem, especially in the rural area,” writes in the document.
We lose more than one billion euros a year
What economic impact does school dropout in Romania have?
Beyond the individual suffering of lives in shortcomings, school dropout cost us over 15 billion euros in the last 12 years, according to a recent study by Dragoș Iliescu, entrepreneur and professor at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Bucharest.
“Almost any Romanian has the impression that the lack of education has no costs,” says Dragoș Iliescu, for Snoop. “This is often this speech: why would it be my responsibility? It should be the responsibility of the one who went to school, he dusses his life. You ignore the circumstances of those people who are left by school. It is the problem of everyone. The state suffers, we all suffer because we do not put ten more money for those children.”
However, Romania is in the last place in the EU, according to Eurostat, at the expenses for education, related to the country's GDP. The elimination of scholarships for students and the merging of schools are two of the measures of the Bolojan Government that have recently attracted other dissatisfaction.
“Pure with steak and salad”
The Curcani school applied, in 2022, for funding through the National Program for Reduction of School Assay (PNRS), with European PNRR funds.
He obtained 755,000 lei. They were bought: books, educational software, printers. Training for teachers and children's trips were paid.
From PNRAS, the teachers paid volunteers at the summer school last year. They started it four years ago and lasts three to four weeks. They organized workshops of: zumba, painting, robotics, literature and mathematics. Because these children “do not go on holidays with their parents”.
In 2024, they also covered hot meals, 15 lei of child. “I brought them (through a company, no) bread, puree with steak and salad. For a month we could give about 200 children,” says Viforel Dorobanțu, general director of the school. Continuation of the report, on the snoop.
