Page 243 - Proceeding 2015

ANDRONICEANU Armenia and OHANYAN Gurgen FAMP
IMF POLICIES AND THEIR EFFECTS ON EDUCATION IN ROMANIA CCASP

waivers, was discontinued, and structural reforms, which should be tailored borrower countries’ different
policies, are subject of overall program performance review (IMF, 2015b). The latter should mitigate the
conditions to withdraw disbursements even if there are some mid-term delays. In this end, recent review
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11 TH ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
of IMF conditionality highlights that IMF measures have been better targeted on country programs and
programs have generally been more effective and safeguarded priority spending (IMF, 2012).

On the other side, the national system of education is the quintessential tool for the creation and

application of knowledge, which is pledge of long-term economic growth. Yet, education sector is mostly
financed by public budget and in time of crises it is the shortest way to cut budget deficit.Moreover, fiscal

adjustment is core measure for IMF to help economies to recover from the turmoil, sometimes by
instrumentalizing health and education to pursue economic development (Marphatia, 2010).However,
there is a wide consensus among policy makers and donors for greater education financing. In particular,

in 2000 the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in association
with the World Bank (WB) launched Education for All - Fast Track Initiative (EFA-FTI) movement, which
30 th – 31 st October 2015 ”Strategic Management for Local Communities” Bucharest children, youth and adults(UNESCO, 2015).At the same time, this project considers devotion from
is now known under Global Partnership for Education (GPE) to provide quality basic education for all

recipient countries, which means scaled-up levels of public investment as a share of Gross Domestic
Product (GDP).While, there are two major concerns in scaling-up public investment: to stay in compliance

with the IMF policies, which imply low budget deficits and low inflation, and aid from the other donors is
usually linked to compliance with these policies (Rowden, 2011, p. 12).

Thus, the paper seeks to unveil IMF program effects on education in Romania during the crisis. Romanian

authorities have signed three consecutive Stand-By Arrangements (SBA) with the Fund since 2009. In
the light of IMF reforms towards safeguarding the priority spending in borrower countries it is of increased

interest whether the IMF has required measures that have adverse effects on education in Romania.

The article is organized as follows. In the next section we present a brief literature review of measuring
effects of IMF programs on education. Section 3 shows a theoretical background ofIMF conditionality and

recent modifications towards flexibility. In Section 4 we discuss SBAs between Romania and the IMF by
highlighting the measure that may affect education. Section 5 is devoted to description of applied
methodology and data sources. Section 6 outlines the results of IMF program effects on education in

Romania. The final section provides concluding remarks.

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