Abstract:

The reform of an academic curriculum consists in respecting the national and European standards and adopting some mechanisms of "natural selection" of the curricular content, to transform the curriculum into a dynamic structure, able to adapt "in real time" to the conditions dictated by the socio-economical evolution. The authors of the paper were part of a project funded by the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research (through the National Council for Financing Higher Education – ro. CNFIS), from the Institutional Development Fund (ro. FDI), called "Gaudeamus Igitur - equal opportunities for education" (Romanian code: CNFIS-FDI-2018-0486). In this paper, the authors have proposed to disseminate the results obtained in the activities carried out in the mentioned project. The authors concluded that multidisciplinary training, through undergraduate degree programs with one year of integrated master's degree, could be a viable solution for curricular restructuring of the educational offer, in the context of the current economic, social and cultural dynamics in Romania but also in Europe. The authors analyzed, within the project (in synthesis in this paper), the opportunity to resize the offer of university studies programs, by transforming some existing bachelor's and master's degree programs within the Faculty of Mechanical, Industrial and Maritime Engineering (ro. FIMIM) of the “Ovidius” University of Constanţa, in a single undergraduate degree program with one year of integrated master's degree. The paper presents a quantitative and qualitative synthesis of the way in which the program proposal respects the requirements of national and international quality standards. The authors considered, in the study, the requirements of the Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ro. ARACIS) as a national organism and the requirements of the European Network for Engineering Education (ENAEE) with the certification system EUR-ACE® and the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) as international institutions that evaluate academic programs and ensure that students' educational experience meets the expected quality standards, the final aim being that the graduates be prepared to enter into the professional field in conditions of immediate performance and integration.

Keywords:

Curricular reform, educational standards, educational performance.