{"id":1868,"date":"2019-04-02T09:22:02","date_gmt":"2019-04-02T09:22:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fundatia-nawafsalameh.ro\/the-sinaia-debates-the-need-to-connect-education-with-the-professional-world\/"},"modified":"2019-04-02T09:22:02","modified_gmt":"2019-04-02T09:22:02","slug":"sinaia-debates-connecting-education-and-professional-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fundatia-nawafsalameh.ro\/en\/sinaia-debates-connecting-education-and-professional-world\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sinaia Debates: The Need to Connect Education with the Professional World"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Alexandrion Foundation<\/strong> organised the third edition of the Sinaia Debates on 29 and 30 March 2019 at the New Montana Hotel<\/a>. Over two days, experts sought answers and solutions to the crisis in Romanian education. The event was also attended by Romania’s Minister of Education.<\/p>\n

The choice of theme for the third edition of the Sinaia Debates was explained by the First Vice-President of the Alexandrion Foundation, Mr Stelios Savva.<\/p>\n

“The backbone of society is education. If we educate our people, we will see the results in the coming years in society, in our countries, in the economy, in technology and in science.”<\/em><\/p>\n

At the event, the problems of education in Romania were raised and analysed, and the experts tried to find possible solutions to the crisis the field is going through:<\/p>\n

“<\/em>A change of perspective is needed: from one of cost to one of investment. It is an investment in human capital, in people. Politicians often see investment over a very short time, when elections are due. You invest in education today and you receive the benefits over a term that does not necessarily coincide with the next elections,\u201d said Dominik Antonowicz, professor of sociology and education expert from Poland. <\/em><\/p>\n

“There is an interna<\/em>tional discussion about education. It is clear that, on the one hand, education has to be adapted to this era of digitalisation, neuroscience, genetics and so on. On the other hand, education has fallen behind its duties. A crisis of education, in fact, has long been alleged. In our country things are more serious. Why? Above all because of the <\/em>migration of specialists.<\/em>“<\/em> said Prof. Dr. Andrei Marga, Vice-President of the Alexandrion Foundation and moderator of the 3rd edition of the Sinaia Debates.<\/p>\n

Prof. Dr. Brian Male, an international curriculum expert from the United Kingdom, highlighted the need to modernise the education system.<\/p>\n

“<\/em>Every child should leave school with the confidence, the ability and the desire to make the world a better place. (\u2026) We must give up an education system created for the 19th century and replace it with one suited to the 21st century.<\/em>“<\/em><\/p>\n

At the event, the Minister of Education, Ms Ecaterina Andronescu, presented her proposals for changes to the Education Law.<\/p>\n

“I presented a vision that underlies the future Education Law. It raised quite a lot of questions and comments. (\u2026) I said: the preparatory class becomes the first grade, but that does not mean we are changing the curriculum or the approaches. We are changing how it is numbered. As for assessments, I proposed that we look a little at the content, at what we assess. Until now, those for the second, fourth and sixth grades have unfortunately been designed in a way that makes them unhelpful. “<\/em>declared the Minister of Education, Ecaterina Andronescu.<\/p>\n

In a Skype intervention from New York, Nawaf Salameh,<\/a> President and Founder of the Alexandrion Foundation, raised another issue linked to the theme of the event, namely the discrepancy between the courses offered by our schools and the needs of the labour market:<\/p>\n

“I<\/em>n Romania we must first know what shortage of specialists we have, which jobs we lack, and how soon certain professions might disappear, so that we can guide our children towards a trade that we know will be in demand. Connecting the educational environment with the professional environment is vital.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

The guests at the third edition of the Sinaia Debates included education experts and figures from related fields, from Romania and from six other countries. We recall among them:<\/p>\n

Brian Male (London); Dakmara Georgescu (Beirut); Petre Roman (Bucharest); Adrian Severin (Bucharest); Madlen \u0218erban (Turin); Constantin Br\u0103tianu (Bucharest); Ladislau Gyemant (Cluj-Napoca); Pompei Cocean (Cluj-Napoca); Cristian Clipa (Timi\u0219oara); Josif Friedmann-Nicolescu (Bucharest); Dominik Antonowicz (Toru\u0144); Leonidio Ferreira (Lisbon); Ilie \u0218erb\u0103nescu (Bucharest); Carmen Cre\u021bu (Ia\u0219i); Vasile Cristea (Cluj-Napoca); Radu Motica (Timi\u0219oara); Vasile Morar (Bucharest); Mircea Arman (Cluj-Napoca); Constantin Barbu (Craiova); Janos Fazekas (Cluj-Napoca \u2013 Sf\u00e2ntu Gheorghe); Dan Constantin (Bucharest); Vincent Fauque (Montreal); Polona Tratnik (Ljubljana); Corina Dumitrescu (Bucharest); Sergiu Iliescu (Bucharest); Horia Giurgiuman (Zurich); Adrian Graur (Suceava); Neculai Seghedin (Ia\u0219i); Ramona Lile (Arad); Gheorghe Schwarz (Arad); Nicu Gavrilu\u021b\u0103 (Ia\u0219i); Ion Sp\u00e2nu (Bucharest)<\/p>\n

At the end of each edition of the Sinaia Debates, the Alexandrion Foundation publishes a volume containing the subjects discussed. The first two have already been printed. The third volume, \u201cThe Crisis of Education: Status Indicators and Solutions\u201d, will be printed and launched on the occasion of the 4th edition of the event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Alexandrion Foundation organised the third edition of the Sinaia Debates on 29 and 30 March 2019 at the New Montana Hotel. Over two days, experts sought answers and solutions to the crisis in Romanian education. The event was also attended by Romania’s Minister of Education. The choice of theme for the third edition of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"alx_galerie":"458,459,460,461","footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundatia-nawafsalameh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundatia-nawafsalameh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundatia-nawafsalameh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundatia-nawafsalameh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundatia-nawafsalameh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fundatia-nawafsalameh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundatia-nawafsalameh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fundatia-nawafsalameh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundatia-nawafsalameh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fundatia-nawafsalameh.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}