Western Teaching Methods are used in Romanian Village Schools

ŞTEFAN CEL MARE, Romania - At the entrance in the village of Stefan cel Mare, located not far from Piteşti, you are welcome in the morning by a crowd of children whose nose is red because of the bitter cold.  Their mothers, fathers and grandparents are taking them to school. Parents are walking, while children are riding their bicycles. They sometimes stop and say "Good morning!" to an aunt who is working in the yard.  The bell is ringing to announce the beginning of the classes at the village primary school, situated in the heart of the village, next to the church and the mayoralty. The little ones, in the first grade, hurry to occupy their seats arranged in two rows, same as in Western schools. They are listening carefully and are watching every word and move of their teacher. Rodica Ciobanu has been teaching at the school in Stefan cel Mare for 23 years; she knows when she needs to be tough and when it is time to pet the children on their heads. "After graduation, I chose this village because I liked its name. I liked it here, and I stayed", the teacher told us. She got married here and she is convinced she was meant to be a teacher at the primary school of Ştefan cel Mare. She was happy when she heard that the school in the village had been included in the program of professional proficiency improvement, carried out for teachers in rural areas by the Ministry of Education and Research and financed by the World Bank.  

 

Information gets to the village with great difficulty

"Information is always getting with more difficulty to the village", says Rodica Ciobanu. "For various reasons, of a technical or material nature", she explained to us. "We, the teachers who teach in rural areas, are hurt when we hear the teachers in the town saying: you, those in the countryside". The teacher is proud that some of her pupils obtained awards at school competitions and that some of them are now studying at well known schools, "even in the capital". "They all have been in my hand", says Rodica Ciobanu.

 

"We started the project together with the Ministry of Education in 2003, with a view to diminish the much too high discrepancies between the urban and the rural areas —let us not forget that 47 percent of Romania's population lives in the countryside. If you ask teachers who teach in village schools what they need the most for their schools, they will always answer to you: "computers".   We might one day be in the situation when there are those computers and they are left unused in the classrooms, because the expenses implied by this cannot be covered. The equipment represents only one third of the issue that the village schools have to deal with.  The best solution is local training of teachers who teach in the rural areas.  Even when our project ends, the modernizing process will have to be continued." Even if the children who study in those schools migrate to urban areas, it will be good if those who migrate are well-trained people", stated Ana Maria Sandi, Senior Operations Officer in charge with education projects at the World Bank.

 

Teaching according to the European standards

Since October, when the professional training program started, the teacher, together with her 22 colleagues, has had a mentor who has been advising her about everything related to the modern teaching methods, according to the European standards. No more dictations and no more monologues delivered by the teacher from her desk. "The children are much more receptive when we use the interactive teaching methods", admit the teachers. The little ones in the first grade make drawings, they fill in the blanks, combine the words that they find in an envelope to create meaningful sentences. The children are constantly made aware of the fact that they are important. "I am important because I learn to read and to write and because I learn how to draw trees", says a little boy in the first grade.  He makes a pause and then continues: "And I want to learn because I want to become somebody." He smiles. "I want to become a football player", says another first grade pupil. "With the money I earn, I will buy scotch for my father, because he needs it badly, and some good cleaning powder for my mother". The mentor, Maria Ciolan, who is also a teacher, is in charge of 97 more schools in Arges country, apart from the school in Stefan cel Mare. "I go to a different school every day", the mentor told us.  Maria Ciolan was born in a village and this fact motivates her even more in her present work."I feel so very happy when I go to a beautiful school" .

 

Commuting by bicycle...

The school in the village of Stefan cel Mare is a beautiful school. It was demolished three years ago and was completely rebuilt, as part of a program for the rehabilitation of schools in the rural areas, assisted by the World Bank. "Children were wearing gloves in the classroom, even when they were writing", remembers the school principal, Florica Alexe. "We now have a heating system and sewerage", she told us. "We are trying to make a difference by this professional re-training program", Florica Alexe added. "We were happy that the mentors came to us", the school principal told us. She knows what a school in a poor village means. "When I graduated from the university, I was sent to a school somewhere in the Vrancea county. The water was salty, the streets were covered with mud and there was no train station in the village", principal Alexe mentioned. "I was coming to the classroom wearing a white overall, as I was teaching biology.

"The bell is ringing to announce that the break is over. The children in the seventh grade start their religion class with a Pater Noster. They say "Amen" in a chorus. They are thinking of their mother, who is saying a prayer for her loved ones, every evening. The teacher, a shy woman with blushing cheeks, is talking to them about the meaning of Christmas. She is reading a psalm from the Bible. The children are listening, with their eyes wide open, and are thinking of Christmas, that they will celebrate next Sunday. The pupils in the seventh grade already know where they will continue their education: at the Pitesti secondary school, in Bucharest, because in this way they will have more possibilities to find a job, or "in Spain, because their parents are working there". The bell rings at noon to announce that the classes are over. The parents are waiting for their children in front of the school, with their bicycles.

   

The project of the Ministry of Education and Research, financed by the World Bank, the government and the local authorities, is meant to assure equal chances to children who live both in rural and urban areas. Only two percent of the children who live in rural areas get to study in universities.The schools in the rural areas suffer from an acute lack of equipment, teaching materials, school books and civilized spaces. Schools in rural areas suffer from a lack of qualified teachers, too. The teachers who teach there have very low salaries and they do not have access to professional proficiency improvement programs, like those who teach in urban regions. This program helps qualify over three thousand teachers who teach in rural areas. This is a

preliminary stage, that is preparing them for the moment when computers will be brought to the village schools. "What is the use of bringing computers here, when the little ones do not even have school books?", says Tiberiu  Velter, Director of the Rural Education Project Management Unit in the Ministry of Education and Research. 

 

Magda CriÅŸan

 

This article was published in Adevărul newspaper, on December 20, 2005.

 

More information about the Rural Education Project is available here.

 

More information about other Bank-related success stories is available here.