Regional Analysis of Out-of-School Children in Romania

The current study consists of a regional analysis of children participation in education in Romania. From an administrative point of view, the country is organized in 41 counties and Bucharest city. The regional level emerged in the public policymaking only after 1989, when escaping a hyper-centralised system of government and under the influence of the accession process and regional policies of EU. Eight development regions were defined, partly following historical regions of Romania. The main regional development structures in Romania were created at national and regional level but in 2011 the Government proposed for public debate a new administrative organisation model, considering the current one not being effective. A special feature of Romania is the large share of its population living in rural areas (46%), significantly higher compared with EU average (24%). As we will see, this fact is relevant for our analysis, given the marked differences in the quality of social services provision (including education) between the two areas of residence. The analysis is part of the UNICEF and the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) Global Initiative Activities in order to stimulate more complex and more informed and monitored policy responses related to exclusion from education. In Romania, the study was carried out by specialists from Ministry of Education, Ministry of Labour and also experts from National Institute of Statistics and UNICEF Romania. The main data sources used were administrative and statistical data sources, like the Exhaustive Education Survey and the Household Budget Survey. The reference period of the analysis consisted from five academic years, from 2005-2006 to 2009-2010, using a set of standardized data tables.