Abstract:

The consolidation of the reform process in Romania according to the evolution of the European Higher Education – harmonized with the “Bologna Process”, the “Education Training 2010” programme and the “Copenhagen Declaration” – is actively supporting the efforts of Romanian Universities to assert themselves in the ever-growing international educational competition.
The Higher Education System in Romania - public or private - is organized in universities, institutes, academies of study and post-university studies schools and its mission is to develop education and research activities specific to the field of science, to the profile and form of organization (long-, short-term and distance education). Higher Education Institutions represent a strong factor of transferring and disseminating scientific and technological knowledge within the economic and social environment, of assisting lifelong learning and “digital literacy” of the population.
Due to the actual market demand, against the structure and dynamics of the educational offer, universities have to become more flexible and adjustable to the social-economic needs. This requires the change of educational programs and curricula, building up competences based education, professionalism and employability with respect to curriculum, modern learning methods, based on interactive ICT programs. The priority for Romanian universities is represented by experimental, practical knowledge and university-industry partnership initiatives, or partnerships with foreign partners - for the development, management, financing and/or attending certain programs within higher education.
Further internationalization of Higher Education Institutions in Romania widens the perspectives of mobility and exchanges for students, teachers, young scientists and researchers, enables international and intercultural cooperation, thus requiring specific academic quality standards, international diploma recognition and the use of powerful marketing promotion techniques, based on fully integrated Information and Communications Technologies (ICT).
Current educational practices in Romania are decisive in determining whether and how digital educational content, tools and services will be deployed and utilised. But the main problem remains the slow ICT adoption process, due to the lack of funding to support the purchase of the technology, lack of training among established teaching practitioners, lack of motivation to adopt ICT as teaching and promotional tools, together with a strong conservatory attitude.
In this paper, we analyze the new challenges for Higher Education Institutions in Romania raised by the need of altering their orientation from a supply-led process to a demand/customer orientation, which increases the importance of ICT adoption and education marketing promotion.

Keywords:

information and communications technologies (ict), higher education, marketing promotion.