Investing in Romania’s Future

We have invited our colleague in the Political Section Cora Motoc to tell us more about the educational programmes that  the OvidiuRo NGO runs in Cluj and about the embassy’s involvement in their projects. 

Romania has 4.89 million school-age people (3-23 years old), out of which only 3.73 million are actually enrolled. This means that almost a quarter of the young people of Romania are not part of the education system. According to Eurostat data, in 2012 school abandonment in Romania was 17.4%.

Are these children lost or is there a way to create opportunities for them? The task is big, but the British Embassy is supporting OvidiuRo, a local NGO, trying to meet it.  This is the second year we’ve targeting funds towards the Every Child in the Kindergarten (Fiecare Copil in Gradinita/ FCG) programme, aimed at preventing early school abandonment.

The program is country-wide and it incentivizes parents to send their children to preschool, by offering €12 in food coupons every month, in exchange for their child’s regular school attendance.   To qualify: children must attend school every day and their parents must attend a monthly “parent day”.  The long-term goal is to roll the FGG in every county of Romania and make early education standard public policy in Romania by 2020.

It is widely accepted that the key to a good education starts at pre-school. Also, that an educated workforce is vital for a country’s economic future. We also know that the economic cost of exclusion is much higher than that of inclusion. So this school year, the British Embassy will be assisting 100 children in OvidiuRo’s newest location: Cluj County.

Cluj County Council is the first county in Romania which will financially support the FGG Programme.  This is a big step forward and according to OvidiuRo’s co-founder, Leslie Hawke: “Cluj is ahead of New York, in this respect”.

On the 11th of February The British Embassy launched the FCG programme in Cluj, together with OvidiuRo and our local stakeholders – the Cluj County Council, the Cluj School Inspectorate and the Social Assistance and Child Protection General Directorate. The FCG programme will now be implemented in 4 villages in Cluj County: Poieni, Sacuieu, Calatele and Bontida. The four communities were selected based on the numbers of children not attending Kindergarten and the desire of the local authorities to implement the programme. We are supporting Bontida, home to Banffy Castle whose restoration is supported by British conservationists.  We visited the school, meeting children, teachers and parents.  Enthusiasm levels ran high. And so are the expectations, on all sides. Please see images from the field visit to Bontida on OvidiuRo’s Facebook page.

We are happy to support this initiative and look forward to monitoring the programme’s development.