EduMin Cimpeanu: School seriously affected by pandemic; we have an explosion of the bullying phenomenon

The Minister of Education, Sorin Cimpeanu, stated that the school was affected during the "enormous, frightening long" pandemic and that "the educational losses are very high," difficult to recover, requiring perseverance and involvement, Agerpres reports.

"There is an explosion of the bullying phenomenon in schools - extremely serious. The psychologists, the specialists say it. There is also, and we have seen it in the recent days, unfortunately, an increase in the number of suicide attempts among teenagers. Also, increasingly more pupils are starting to develop eye diseases," the Minister told Prima TV.

Cimpeanu added that during this period the existing inequities in the Romanian education system deepened, and the school dropout also increased. Thus, from 2015 to 2019 there was a decrease in school dropout from 18-19pct to 15.3pct. However, in 2020, school dropouts increased again to 15.6pct, reaching an average of 26pct in rural areas.

"These are the figures for 2020. I am very concerned when looking at the figures showed to us by the INS (National Statistics Institution) and no matter how much we hope that these already worrying figures will not increase significantly (...) when we have the figures for 2021, I am afraid that they will be even worse. These are all effects of the education system, generated by the pandemic. These are negative effects that have overlapped with the chronic problems already existing in the Romanian education system," he said.

Cimpeanu also drew attention to the fact that there are students who are finishing their second year of university, but who have not yet entered an amphitheater and have not participated in any king of practical work.

He recalled that a national programme to reduce school dropout was adopted at the end of December.

As a result, a list of 3,235 vulnerable schools has already been published on the Ministry of Education's website, but their number could increase to 4,000. From these, 2,500 educational units will be selected, which will obtain funding of up to 200,000 euros, which can be used for: payment of school counselors, organization of camps, purchase of sports or IT equipment, granting of support allowances for pupils, providing food.