Our work with the Ministry of Education
Connecting Classrooms award with Ministry of Education as a partner

For the last two decades, the Romanian Ministry of National Education has been the British Council’s main strategic partner in Romania. We have worked at both policy making and implementation levels to support and strengthen reform in key educational areas. Much of our work in collaboration over the past 20 years has focused on the consolidation of English as the first choice of foreign language for business and communication and the development of the English language teaching community.  We have also been involved in reforms of the general education system.  We work on development of both school and university education, and increasingly on developing alternative and more flexible methods of learning.  

Find out more about the objectives of this partnership and our collaborative projects below.

Improving youth employability

The projects English for the World of Work and Skills for Employability sought to:

  • improve the teaching and learning of specialist subjects which were required for the world of work
  • highlight the importance of a specific curriculum for English in vocational schools.

These objectives are in line with the national agenda for technical vocational education reform, and the projects generated change at both school-based and national curriculum frameworks. New ways of collaborative working between education authorities and practitioners, students and employers have been created within these projects. Skills for Employability has improved the teaching and learning of subjects in the area of agritourism and rural tourism, and generated resources for teaching in these fields, which are now included in the national curriculum.

Teacher development opportunities

Projects in this field are generally aimed at improving the professional level of new graduates entering the system as teachers and enhancing the professional knowledge and skills of current teachers. Projects have focused on classroom methodology, teacher training, inspector training, curriculum design, materials writing and developments in mentoring.

Increasing understanding and working towards European standards and values

Our work in this area has focused on supporting young people's understanding of European standards and values by assisting reform in three key areas: education, governance and civil society.

The projects Human Rights, Education for Democratic Citizenship and Interlingua have been seminal in raising young people’s awareness of human rights and citizenship issues at the local, national and global levels, in developing their intercultural competence with a focus on language and communication for democratic citizenship.

These projects have increased young people's confidence to take appropriate action to protect democratic principles and practices within their communities - including participation in NGO activities.

Building networks between young people in Romania and their European counterparts

Our aim is to increase the confidence of the next generation of young leaders in Romania by building effective partnerships and networks with their counterparts in Europe.

In Romania, the global Connecting Classrooms programme was set up as a schools link project whereby students from Hungary, France, Romania and the UK share, discuss and work on citizenship issues.

The main elements of the project were:

  • youth leadership and ‘student voice’
  • global citizenship in the school curriculum
  • teachers as international coordinators
  • community engagement and the values of inclusion and diversity reflected in the school ethos.

See also

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