The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Romanian Education System

Covid-19 pandemic brought some serious challenges for the Romanian education system which was already struggling with major problems, such as the growing school dropout, functional illiteracy, and unequal access to education for children in the rural environment. In this respect, the present research aims to explore the impact of Covid-19 on the Romanian education system in order to create a comprehensive picture regarding the implemented changes during the pandemic and their impact as well as, to establish if the authorities with prerogatives in the field of national education proved to be resilient or not. The main objectives of the study are: (1) to investigate the state of the education system in Romania before and during the Covid-19 pandemic to observe how prepared it was for such a shock and (2) to analyze the measures taken by the authorities with prerogatives in the education field during the pandemic and their impact. The research starts with an overview of the state of education in Romania before the pandemic in which the situation in the education system, such as the school dropout, the equal access to education in Romania as well as the low results of Romanian students on PISA tests are briefly presented. The research methodology consists of (1) an exploratory study based on document analysis where we collected secondary data from official reports and databases to investigate the main indicators related to education and (2) a descriptive case study based also on document analysis where the responses to the education crisis generated by Covid-19 and the measures taken by the authorities are analyzed to create a comprehensive picture regarding how the authorities managed the impact of Covid-19 on education and how this situation affected the well-functioning of the schools and universities in Romania. The study brought to light some serious implications regarding the impact of the pandemic on the education system such as: the risk of school dropout raised significantly, especially for children in the rural area, the online education process proved to be a challenge for both teachers and students, the quality of education has declined and a significant number of children did not have access to online classes.