For Romania, becoming a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) currently represents a national project, Minister of Education and Research Daniel David said on Wednesday, highlighting the partnership with the OECD regarding the education system.

He participated in the opening of a working session within the project „Strengthening Bulgaria’s and Romania’s capacity to design and deliver curricular reforms and improve student learning outcomes.”

Between March 24 and 27, an OECD team is in Romania for consultations within this project, which aims to support Bulgaria and Romania in progressing with their planned curricular reforms to improve student outcomes.

The project is funded by the European Union through the Technical Support Instrument.

„For Romania, becoming a member of the OECD represents, at this moment, a national project, so everything that happens in various fields and subfields is extremely important at the national level. The second idea – at the level of Education and Research – I announced, since I took over the portfolio, that I am working on a diagnosis that will tell us what are the strengths we have and why we have these strengths, so we know how to strengthen them, develop them and move them forward; what are the weaknesses, why do we have these weaknesses, and then come up with corrective measures and development plans. Clearly, the system, as I evaluate it in my capacity as minister of Education and Research, covers all components, namely pre-university education, higher education, lifelong learning, and the Research-Development-Innovation area,” the minister explained.

He added that the education system diagnosis he is working on is often based on data provided by the OECD.

„My perspective will also come from the science area, from the area of cognitive sciences with applications in the educational area, for what we call evidence-based education, whether we discuss personal level – learning techniques, teaching techniques, at the intermediate level – how we organise schools, how we organise classes, or at a higher level – how we make public policies. The fundamental idea I always have in mind is how we can do these things based on evidence. I am glad to have the OECD’s partnership in this endeavor, as what they do is most often based on evidence,” said Daniel David.

AGERPRES