ANALYSIS Austerity measures wrapped in censorship and PR spin under minister Daniel David, a prominent professor, hit Romanian education hard

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A series of austerity measures targeting teachers, students and school organisation came into effect in Romania starting Friday, as part of a larger budgetary and fiscal package. The changes, due to be applied gradually over the coming months, are a first step in the new government efforts to cut costs massively and bring balance to the state budget in an unprecedentedly difficult political and economic context. Proposed measures targeting the education have caused public uproar. They were supported by the Education minister, reputed university professor and researcher Daniel David, with acts of scientific censorship and attempts at PR spins, Edupedu.ro writes.

• This happened despite that he has been promoting himself as a man of data-, science-based decisions, standing up against a wave of disinformation and conspiracies engulfing the society, as shown by recent elections.

The measures now coming into effect are aimed at increasing the workload of teachers, reducing pay in certain circumstances, boosting the number of pupils per class, dropping or changing conditions for a series of scholarships. This happens in a country known for his worst records in the European Union when it comes to quality benchmarks for school systems.

They have caused a wave of discontent especially among teachers. The government, including prime minister Ilie Bolojan and Education minister Daniel David, have claimed they were a must – along other major budget and fiscal decisions such as increasing the VAT tax – as the Education sector is a major area of governmental spending.

But the government did little to provide arguments for their decisions affecting teachers, pupils and schools, or provide data on the expected impact. This is even more relevant in a time where the whole austerity package is aimed at bringing balance to the budget in the wake of an electoral period when the same parties which now form the core of the current government had lost control in a spending spree that lasted years.

And when Edupedu.ro attempted to obtain answers from Education researchers on their role in supporting or not supporting the measures introduced in the sector, the Education and Research Ministry under Daniel David attempted to censor those answers. Then they tried to give a spin when the censorship was revealed, just as the new set of changes in the sector were due to come into effect.

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