It’s expected that Romania’s new ban on teachers tutoring in-school children privately will go into effect at the start of the next school year. Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, authorities have attempted to control a widespread phenomenon that has only gotten worse.
According to Minister of Education Sorin Cîmpeanu, the prohibition will be implemented as part of the “Educated Romania” agenda via new legislation. Additionally, he said that instructors who do not adhere to the new policy would be fined.
Pre-university education ethics code was approved in 2018 and included this regulation, which prohibits favoritism and receiving material items or money for educational services delivered in school. However, it has not yet been implemented.
An annual 2021 survey released by the Romanian Academic Society and Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy found that one in three youngsters in 2019-2020 were being privately taught by a third of their peers, according to a press release (IRES).
There is little doubt that private lessons are essential for the education of most parents’ children, as seen by the 80 percent of parents who claimed that their children’s skills improved significantly after starting private lessons.
Private tutoring cost an average of RON 300 (EUR 60) per month for the year studied, despite the availability of various free educational programs.
Nearly 60 percent of Romanian pupils are being tutored in at least one topic, according to a recent poll by Save the Children Romania. Probably caused by the educational deficiencies Romania’s schools faced over the last two years of the COVID epidemic.
There is no law prohibiting parents from enrolling their children in tutoring programs in Europe. Teachers shouldn’t tutor their own students, though, as a matter of common sense. When a teacher individually teaches students from their own class, the significance of grades diminishes,” stated Sorin Cîmpeanu to HotNews.ro. “We want grades to be relevant and we want ethical norms to be observed,” added Cîmpeanu.
An interview with Digi 24 Television also revealed that a teacher’s obligation to make every attempt to prevent the need for further instruction would be included in the legislation package. To be clear, the legislation does not prohibit instructors from providing free or low-cost remedial programs to their students.
There will be a National School Inspection Committee, which will be charged with keeping an eye on instructors and ensuring that they are acting in compliance with the law. “Experienced professors who have established themselves in terms of moral and professional integrity” will make up the committee.
It has also just released a handbook for private tutors, ANAF’s latest pronouncement on the topic. Teachers who make a living tutoring students are required, according to the instructions, to register with the Trade Register and to include tutoring revenue in their tax returns.
Teachers are also required to acquire cash registers so that they may provide their customers with receipts for the services they provide. However, it is yet unclear what punishments would be imposed to instructors who tutor their own students or those who refuse to register their extra income.