6.6 Social inclusion through education and training
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Educational support
Policies in the context of formal education
The Education and Training Strategy in Romania for the period 2016-2020 proposes a coherent approach to initial vocational training and continuing vocational training leading to the development of an accessible, attractive, competitive and relevant vocational training system for the requirements of the labour market. The strategy integrates initial and continuing vocational education and training and follows the public policy cycle 2007 - 2013 in the field of human resource development and has been developed in line with Europe 2020’s objectives. The school drop out rate increased when the vocational schools were reopened in 2013-2014. The specific objectives set by the Strategy include the development of measures aimed to support vulnerable youth to get involved with the vocational and training programmes.
The target groups identified in official documents
The target groups identified in the Education and Training Strategy in Romania include:
- Children and young people aged 18-24 in 2020
- Children and young people in families with low socioeconomic status
- Children and young people in rural areas
- Roma population and other marginalized and underrepresented groups
- Youth people with special education needs.
Otherwise, the poorly qualified, unemployed, young NEETs are to be provided with information and counseling both for training and employment opportunities by the counties’ employment agencies. In terms of funding, the European Social Fund opportunities through The Operational Programme Human Capital 2014 - 2020 were to finance the integrated measures for unemployed young NEET (training and employment).
In order to support young people dealing with the NEET situation, the Ministry of Education continued developing “The second chance programme” revising the implementation methodology so that it would cover a wider population. The opportunity of acquiring a professional qualification through the programme of following 25% of the courses online would be some of the newly introduced measures by the newly adopted methodology.
Social cohesion and equal opportunities
Policies in formal education
Students with fewer opportunities are entitled to receive the social scholarships.
In terms of citizenship education, Romania is one of the countries where citizenship education is a separate subject only in primary education but then, for the other stages, it is neither a separate subject or a trans-sectorial study theme within other subjects.
Programmes/projects/initiatives – either directly organised or funded by public authorities – in the context of non-formal and informal learning, and youth work
In 2017, the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the National Authority for Child Rights’ Protection and Adoption implement the project Ready for Life aiming to design and implement activities for over 200 young people (14-17 years old) living in the foster care system. A continuation project 'Integration through movement' was implemented in 2020 by the Ministry of Youth and Sports (according to the annual report of the Ministry).
The programme is continued since 2022 by the Ministry of Family, Youth and Equal Opportunities, with over 6,000 beneficiaries in 2023.
In line with the Youth Strategy’s objectives, one of the key themes tackled within the Summer Camps organized by the Ministry of Youth and Sport was social inclusion.