The Minister of Education is not right when he says that functional illiteracy is a national security issue. It is not A problem. Functional illiteracy measured in nearly half of high school graduates and, I have no doubt, much more widespread in society, with many graduates of higher education included, is THE BIGGEST national security problem. It is an ongoing catastrophe with catastrophic effects.
Everything that surrounds us in daily life, in daily or periodic choices, such as electoral ones, is a direct consequence of the fact that so many of our fellow human beings do not understand what they read, even if technically they have mastered the craft of writing and reading, that is, they understand the meaning and usage of letters.
And no one has been willing so far to truly tackle the issue for at least two main reasons. On one hand, neither the political class nor the dignitaries miss the percentage of functional illiteracy.
You can't expect people with late, dubious qualifications and dubiously obtained degrees to understand the seriousness of the phenomenon and, especially, to have solutions. Sure, they could let others do it, they could bring competent people to implement the technical solutions that they can politically endorse.
But, on one hand, no official wants more competent people around them, who inevitably would highlight their intellectual or cultural modesty, and on the other hand, the smarter the electorate is, the more demanding and harder to deceive it becomes.
The political savior phenomenon, regardless of what he is called, originates from the same dramatic reality. And it's not just about swallowing any nonsense just because it's uttered by the Messiah, whoever he may be, not just one on the political stage. To have a critical spirit, you need an information base that you can apply because you have understood it.
It's also about, especially about understanding how democracy and state institutions function. If you understand the role of each function, you no longer expect the president to raise salaries, lower taxes, and make butter cheaper. And if you understand, you know what to look for when you vote, what criteria, what skills. And you know how to discern promises without substance from the applicable plan.
We see terrible effects in everyday life. We are the European country with the most children dying for unimaginable reasons. For example, because they are washed with substances intended for animals. People are dying in droves due to treatments with cabbage juice and walking barefoot in the morning dew.
We are champions at blowing up due to all kinds of improvisations. They are made by adults who have left school without knowing basic aspects of the laws of physics, which sometimes make the difference between life and death.
Everything bad that happens to us as a society, from a micro to a macro level, originates from the lamentable state of education and the functional illiteracy of the majority. And until something changes there, it can't get any better.
The explanation is not difficult to give, and I say this as a mother of three. The Romanian school does not teach you to think, it does not teach you to be autonomous. The Romanian school delivers "half-baked" hypercaloric products for promotion, which do not nourish the mind but only give both the student and the parent the feeling of bloated satiety. A fat totally contraindicated for the agility of free thinking.
Will Minister Daniel David succeed in changing this state of affairs?
He guarantees with his position the start of the reform and announces for May both a complete report and a set of educational policies: "If someone will take on educational policies, I will still be a minister, if not, I won't." I have absolutely no doubt that Mr. David has a genuine reformist desire, just as the best Education Minister after 1989 - Mircea Miclea - did years ago.
However, he certainly cannot do it alone. He needs immense political support, commensurate with the resistance he will inevitably encounter from the system, from parents who only conceive of school as they themselves did, as well as with the arguments he will have to put on the table for the system.
The solution requires a total paradigm shift, both in terms of the content taught and the teaching methods. The effort will be significant, many will not be able to readjust, they will have to be removed from the system, while it will need to be refreshed with competent people and a different mindset.
But both those who need to reinvent themselves as teachers and those newly attracted need to be motivated by good salaries and a lot of fairness in their relationship with them. This will require money invested in education, at least at the level of the never respected 6% of GDP.
And he needs a team in the ministry that understands his vision, shares it, and works for it. What we see on the Ministry of Education's website is not encouraging at all.
The same state secretaries, led by Mr. Ion, who told me on a TV show that the curriculum and schedules are made based on teachers' norms, not on the students' interest, which is why 7th and 8th grade children end up staying at school from 8 am to 3 pm, then go home and do their homework, so they end up having more than 40 hours per week. And with Mr. Paraschiv, the immovable head of higher education.
The same Ms. Lazăr, the ministry's general secretary, Minister Câmpeanu's right hand and the most influential person in the ministry since then, with the effects we see. Not to mention the political fauna in the school inspectorates.
It's very difficult for me to understand how Minister David imagines that surrounded by the same people who constitute a toxic and ossified structure of the system, he will be able to achieve different results. And how he imagines that they will not strive to "tie his shoelaces" with many knots to deactivate any chance of reform from the start.
Without radical changes in the team that has shown its true colors, without money and total political support, the path of education and Romania leads to Hell, even if it is paved with the wonderful intentions of the minister.