NEW TRAINING FOR PRIMARY TEACHERS IN ROMANIA - FROM HIGH SCHOOL TO UNIVERSITY

I am a PhD student in Educational Sciences at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences and I am interested in changes occurring in the Romanian educational system. There are a number of questions that guide the research for my doctorate thesis: According to the social and educational context of the 21st Century, characterized by the emergence of the knowledge society, can we predict the developing of the educational policies at global, European and national level? New skills are based on individual and social development needed in the knowledge society? What are the changes in teacher’s training in this context? Can we estimate the importance of training and the development of skills for the primary school teachers in the context in which they are focused on "real life"? What is the social context of the new profession (because there is a substantial change)? How and how much are teachers aware of the need for a continuous training? Do significant differences in training for professionalism be compared with those of the new teachers entering the system?

I think that we have to consider the context of the discussions on European education focused on training and development of highly qualified teachers so that they will have ways of continuous improvement, which would ensure development of our society in this century. In Romania, following the implementation of the Bologna system, training policies aim to improve the training of teachers working with primary pupils and have led to a new teacher for primary education. He is now a graduate of an institution of higher education, previous from the situation until now when his training was done in high school. We have many primary school teachers trained by former Pedagogical High Schools, some of them have completed their studies on college, but they were not considered teachers in the eyes of authorities, because they did not graduate from a university.

Therefore, I wish to explain the context we are in, while the EU has set in Leuven, 2009, the implementation and training for self-certification of national qualifications frameworks in accordance with the general framework of qualifications for the European Higher Education Area by 2012. I think it is important to develop the skills and qualifications needed by teachers working in primary schools in order to achieve their role in the 21st Century society. We have to recognize the important role they play in education, because they bring a major contribution to the cultural and economic development of our society.

A new set of skills are necessary for primary school teacher, as he becomes an active citizen and a person who study independently and continuously. I will present in my paper this set of skills, with a focus on the role and importance of the transversal competencies, because I believe strongly that the link between school and society is based on mutual trust granted by the educational institutions.