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Description
According to the Council Resolution on encouraging the political participation of young people in democratic life in Europe (2015 / C 417/02), the characteristics of effective and real youth political participation processes include feedback and comprehensive monitoring of authorities'' decisions and the relevance of these decisions to young people. Unfortunately, this monitoring is carried out poorly or not at all on the educational policies in Romania, reason for which the civil society in our country found out much too late. For exemple, in 2020, in the Romanian Parliament, through an ad-hoc amendment, access students in sex education was restricted without a debate with specialists in the sciences of education. The project Romanian Education Monitor will mean, first of all, the growth by the Romanian Academic Society of a generation of watchdogs in the field of educational policies. Expected outcomes include recruiting and training 15 young people aged between 15 and 35, who will analyze and comment on the political agenda in the field of education, will present the biographies of parliamentarians and will analyze the political statements of local elected officials in the field of education, reporting fake news and violations of the law. The instrument EduLeaks 2.0 tool will be developed on the website, through which any citizen can report cases of non-compliance with national education law, academic imposture, conflicts of interest, cases of non-compliance with the principle of decision-making transparency, discriminatory attitudes in pre-university and university schools, cases plagiarism etc. The project is built on the belief that at the end, the activities will increase the involvement of citizens in relation to education policies at national and local level, through their coherent, regular information on the debate on education policies in Parliament, in an accessible and inclusive way, to increase the legitimacy of educational policies.
Summary of project results
The Romanian Education Monitor project aimed to increase the degree of involvement of citizens, especially young people, in educational policies at the national and local level, through coherent, periodic information regarding the debate on educational policies in Parliament. The need for the project was based on the fact that the majority of young people in Romania (according to studies) are disinterested in politics and how decisions affect them. Moreover, according to the Promoter - the educational system in Romania, the system of public educational policies, is far too little monitored by organized civil society, and neither the authorities with a role in the educational field - ministries, inspectorates, make any effort to inform other stakeholders in advance - students, parents'' associations, students, etc. or in the promotion of institutional dialogue on current educational issues.
Starting from this context, the Promoter proposed (1) increasing the degree of civic awareness and the capacity to monitor the authorities by 15 young people from rural and urban environments, by organizing specific training sessions and learning by doing for them - analyzing and commenting on educational policies; and (2) increasing the impact of interventions to monitor the activity of public authorities with attributions in the field of education by stimulating the watch-dog capacity of public policies at the local and central level, as well as by developing specific instruments. As an organizational development objective, the Promoter has proposed holding evaluation, training, and coaching sessions to develop and implement an efficient and responsible institutional communication strategy.
In order to achieve these objectives, the promoter recruited and selected within A3 - 15 participants aged between 15 and 35 years, from 10 different UATs to be part of the editorial staff of the Monitorul educatiei. Then, within A4, 2 seminars (one physical and one online) were organized with them regarding citizen involvement in civil society and the use of advocacy tools; During the in-person meeting, a visit to the Education Committee in the Senate was also organized, where the young people participated in parliamentary discussions in the Education Committee. Within the framework of A5, the website of the project https://romaniacurata.ro/monitoruleducatiei/ was created and (a) 63 documented biographies (of which 33 of general school inspectors) were developed and uploaded on the website by the editors and 30 of the members of Parliament in the specialized commissions of the Parliament); were made and uploaded and (b) 63 articles presenting the CVs of decision-makers in education (of which 33 of the general school inspectors and 30 of the members of parliament in the specialized commissions of the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate). The articles can be found here https://romaniacurata.ro/monitoruleducatiei/category/biografii-parlamentari/; (c) All published articles are also part of a National Report on the biographies of parliamentarians published on the page of Monitorului Educatiei (https://publicatii.romaniacurata.ro/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Enciclopedia.pdf). Within A6, (a) the agendas of the meetings of the specialized committees within the Parliament were analyzed monthly, and, based on these analyses, 50 parliamentary agendas were drawn up (https://romaniacurata.ro/monitoruleducatiei/category /parliamentary agendas/); (b) 13 statements of politicians were also analyzed with the subject of education / fact checking; (c) in the end, a Report containing the activity of the parliamentarians from the education commissions and the politicians'' public statements about education was produced. The report was also launched on the occasion of the final event of the project and published here - https://romaniacurata.ro/monitoruleducatiei/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Raport-monitor-agende-declaratii.pdf. Within A7 - 25 information bulletins were produced for the general public, including the presentation of educational policies at the local level from the 25 UATs. The Report "Education at the local level - the activity of the authorities and the biographies of the school inspectors" was also produced, also launched during the final event of the project and published here - https://romaniacurata.ro/monitoruleducatiei/wp-content/uploads/2023/09 /Report-biographies-inspectori-1_compressed.pdf. Within A8, the EduLeaks 2.0 tool was developed - https://eduleaks.ro/, an online tool integrated into the Education Monitor web page. Using this tool, any citizen can report cases of non-compliance with the national education law, academic imposture, conflicts of interest, cases of non-compliance with the principle of decision-making transparency, discriminatory attitudes in pre-university education units and universities and/or cases of plagiarism, etc. The EduLeaks website also published 28 articles presenting the notifications received and the responses with recommendations for action. Within A9, the YouTube channel of the project was developed and 20 videos were made regarding the dismantling of some education myths - https://www.youtube.com/@monitoruleducatiei. As part of the organizational development activity (A10), a course support for the training session was drafted; a training session was organized with the members of the promoter''s team and a communication strategy was developed.
During the parliamentary debates regarding the amendment of the education laws, the promoter''s team was actively involved through participation, quick reaction, etc.
The Education Monitor has set out to create a generation of education watchdogs to monitor the work of education authorities, and we have contributed to strengthening civil society in the field of education by initiating public calls and positions on issues of interest in the context of the adoption of new education legislation, and we have contributed to demystifying some education issues through a mini-series of videos on Youtube and Facebook - 10 minutes on education, respectively the series Your Guide to School. We monitored public authorities on the main coordinates of local education ecosystems. We have created the Encyclopedia of Education Parliamentarians, a unique document in Romania that presents the achievements and profiles of parliamentarians from the education committees, as well as a taxonomy of their political statements, following an intensive fact-checking process. Additionally, we monitored and analyzed the meetings of these committees and reported the information to the public in an accessible language. Moreover, we launched a tool to ensure the real sustainability of the project – Eduleaks, through which citizens will report incidents in schools and high schools that constitute abuses. We have also been present in the debate on public policies in education, organizing events, consultations, and roundtables on topics of interest such as: the Operational Program for Education and Employment, how the education law becomes a law, the digitalization of education (on which we also published a public report), and more. The final event, organized in September, brought together representatives of the most important categories of stakeholders involved in the educational process to discuss the importance of monitoring decision-makers in the field of education. The total number of direct beneficiaries exceeds 500 participants at events or persons who took part in our advocacy initiatives, among which are students, teachers as well as decision-makers.