Romanian Educational System

Romanian Educational System Categories: in Romania the education offered in the public system is free and the compulsory education is of 10 years.

The educational system is divided in the following categories:
1. pre-university education
2. university education
3. continuouse education

1. Pre-University education
a. Pre-school education: first group, second group, third group and pre-school group (children aged 3 to 6 years).
b. Primary education: 1st to 4th grade (starting children aged 6). In the primary education the curriculum includes the following topics:
• language and communication (Romanian language and a foreign language),
• math and sciences,
• human and society (civic education, history, geography),
• arts (fine arts education, musical education),
• sports,
• technology (practical abilities and technological education),
• religion
c. Secondary education: the curriculum includes the following topics:
• Romanian language;
• foreign language (usually 2 foreign languages are studied in the secondary education in Romania, the most studied foreign languages being: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish);
• mathematics,
• physics,
• chemistry,
• biology and anatomy,
• geography,
• history,
• civic education,
• fine arts education,
• music education,
• technological education, etc.

The secondary education is divided into:
• Gymnasium (lower secondary education) – 5th to 8th grade.
• High school (upper secondary education) - 9th to 12th or 13th grade (the 13th grade is attended in the vocational high-schools). The high-schools can be:
– Theoretical (human or real section).
– Technological (technical, services, natural resources exploitation, environmental protection and so on).
– Vocational (military, technological, sportive, artistic or pedagogical).
• Professional education - 1 to 3 years - this type of education is preparing the students for a special job (e.g.: car mechanic, plumber, professional driver, etc.)

2. Superior education
Includes:
• university education (3 to 5 years) or
• post-university education :
– thoroughgoing university studies;
– master,
– post-university academic studies;
– doctoral studies;
– post-university studies for specialization or for further improvement

3. Continuous education that allows either classical training, distance training and training by correspondence.
In every city the educational system foresees the existence of "Special logopedic centers". The specialists in these centers are psychologists, pedagogs or specialists in special psycho-pedagogy) and their role is to guide the teachers in using the necessary methods for children’s language development and correction.
It is important to say that the Romanian educational law regarding the operation of these centers is referring just to the children with "difficulties in spoken language", not to all the categories of learning difficulties (including reading and writing).
Beside these centers, in every school there is a psycho-pedagogical center for educational and vocational guidance.

The teachers are divided into several categories:
- Preschool teachers - that can have medium studies (pedagogical high school) or college studies (specialization in pre-school education in an institutor’s college)
- Primary school teachers - that can have medium studies (pedagogical high school) or college studies (specialization in pre-school education in an institutor’s college)
- Teachers for the other type of formal education - these are the teachers for any of the other type of school levels.
- These teachers must have university studies in the field they are teaching and also the special psycho-pedagogical module (that can be optionally attended by any university student).
- Depending on their experience, the teachers can have different degrees (2nd degree after 4 years of activity and a series of exams, 1st degree after 8 years of activity and another series of exams).

There is no specialization for adult education teachers. Any teacher can provide adult education courses on his specialization without any other specialized training.
The responsible specialists that can assess people for reading and writing difficulties are not the teachers but the specialists that graduated a specialization in psychology (psychology, special psycho pedagogy, educational psychology, pedagogy).
As we already showed earlier when speaking about the provisions of the Romanian educational law regarding the “special educational centers”, the emphasis on reading and writing difficulties and methods and tools to overcome them is not visible.

For adult education the situation is more difficult.
Although all the training providers for adults are using special methods and tools, adapted to the adult learning styles, there are no information about the possible reading and writing difficulties that could interfere with the learning process.
The vocational training institution doesn't have testing instruments for diagnosing dyslexia or other reading and writing difficulties of adult learners before they are entering a learning process.
There are no special training offered to psychologists or educational specialist regarding the “reading and writing difficulties of adults”.
There aren’t also any special courses offered to adults having these kinds of problems.