Foreword

Romania's education crisis

By Vivid writer: Andrew Begg

Romania currently faces an education crisis. If any one organisation can coordinate a whole solution together, one gets the feeling that that organisation is Ovidiu Rom

Posted: 29/09/2008

Loredana has performed at every Halloween Ball.

Literacy rates have been falling for some time in Romania, and so too have high school drop out rates been rising - a cause for alarm in itself, but the fact that students are dropping out at an earlier age is especially disturbing. (Romania's experience goes against regional trends, and against what you would consider to be normal for an emerging market with Romania's recent huge growth spurts.) And children are not retaining the knowledge that they used to: according to a recent PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literature Study) survey, Romania had fallen 12 places since 2001, and is now on a par with countries such as Iran, Indonesia and Trinidad. A country that has long prided itself on its standard of education and the brilliant minds that have contributed so much to the world should be deeply concerned at these findings.

One civil society organisation, Ovidiu Rom, has made it their mission to get "the children that fall between the cracks of the system" into school.

Utilising the services of social workers and community facilitators they go door to door to pinpoint households that have school age children, and if those children are not going to school then Ovidiu Rom social workers find the reasons and help the families address them. Often parents of children with disabilities think, erroneously, that their children won't be allowed in school. "With a little encouragement, both the parents and the children are thrilled to have this new possibility open up for them," says Ovidiu Rom's executive director, Maria Gheorghiu. "The shame is that so many people don't realize that the law is actually on their side."

Unsurprisingly, it is the children from the poorest, least educated families that are mostly affected. Ovidiu Rom's initiative Fiecare Copil in Scoala has spread to a number of counties by word of mouth among school directors. The goal now is for it to become a nationwide effort.

To do that requires the buy-in of central government, local schools, municipal authorities, inspectors, teachers, police, social workers, community organisers and, of course, parents and children. That, in turn, requires a whole lot of coordination. But if any one organisation can knit the whole thing together, one gets the feeling that that organisation is Ovidiu Rom.

The Halloween Ball

If there is one annual event, one happening that is a wholly original, borne of itself, contemporary Bucharest happening, one of which the city can be very proud, and one that ranks on any scale as an evening of fantastic fun, then that event has to be, of course, Ovidiu Rom's annual Halloween Ball at The People's Palace. It is now indelibly fixed in the life and soul of the city. Some people consider it the social event of the year, and make it the only charity event that they attend. Some fly in from outside the country just to be there. Everyone looks forward to the Halloween Ball as they look forward to no other party, for the simple reason that there is no party on the Bucharest calendar as good as the Halloween Ball.

As well as being a fundraiser it is an evening of awareness. Education is not a privilege, as the theme of the evening emphasises - it is a right, and it is one that an increasing number of young Romanians are missing out on.

This year the ball will be held on Saturday 25th October, and as always it will be held at Palatul Parlamentului. This year's theme is Heroes, Real Heroes - people who have inspired us.

Who inspires you?

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