Daniel David: More money for education

Debates on the budgets for the main authorizing officers are continuing in Parliament.

In the meantime, several ministries, including education, transport and health, have also had their budgets approved.

The Minister of Education and Research, Daniel David, told MPs that the budget for education this year has an increase of more than nine percent compared to the preliminary execution in 2024, and that the projects are aimed at both pre-university and university areas and cover school dropout, school equipment, and digitalization.

More money than last year has also been earmarked for research, and the minister says he will make an assessment in this sector.

Daniel David: My job at the moment is to make sure that the money we have is spent efficiently, because, maybe I shouldn't say this as a minister of a sector, you always want more and my target is that 15% of the general consolidated budget on spending or, if you like, 6% of GDP, but at the same time we all have to be aware that we also have to sort things out at home, to make sure that the money we have is spent efficiently.

USR MEP Claudiu Nasui believes education reform is needed because the results are not adequate.

Claudiu Nasui: Well, Romania does a lot of education, if we at least look at the hours spent in school, but the results are not up to the mark. And also, if we look at the budgets, we see a school population that is still decreasing, budgets that are still increasing, well above inflation, and again the results are not up to the mark, which shows that we might have a problem like a bucket in which we keep putting water, but it is full of holes and it is useless to put more water, because we only get more water to come out, we never manage to fill it.

The draft budgets of the Ministries of Transport and Health also received a favorable opinion from the joint committees, which will conclude their debates tonight.

Translated by: Radu Matei