Page 247 - Proceeding 2015

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

education allocation and increase expenditures/GDP ratio via attracting resources from structural and
cohesion funds. While, they by absorption rate of cohesion funds are lagging behind the average EU-28
by 15 percentage points comprising 63.7 percent in 2013 (Cohesion data, 2013).Already, in 2008 all major
PROCEEDINGS OF THE 11 TH ADMINISTRATION AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
political parties and trade unions highlighted the urgency of educational reforms by signing National Pact
for Education (NPE). The following objectives are put in the pact: modernization of education and

institutions in 2008-2013; budget allocation on education pin at minimum 6 percent of GDP by 2013;
adoption of the principle “the money follows the students” in precollege education and many others (NPE,
2008). Yet, Romanian government receded since global financial crisis hard hit its economy. Moreover, it

could not be able to withstand the downturn solely turned to the IMF and the EU for financial assistance.
Both gave financial assistance by conditioning Romanian government to pursue IMF measures tailored

to the loans.

An overview of some Romanian educational indicators in 2008-2013 reveals negative impact of crisis
(see Table 1). Particularly, since 2008 educational units decreased by 1,161 comprising only 7,069 in
30 th – 31 st October 2015 ”Strategic Management for Local Communities” Bucharest units curtailed by respectively around 700 thousand and 32 thousand persons. 2012 2013
2013. Moreover, population enrollment in education and teaching staff along with shrinkage of educational

TABLE 1 - SOME DESCRIPTIVE INDICATORS OF ROMANIAN EDUCATION
Years
2011
2010
2009
2008
7,588
8,244
8,230
7,069
8,221
Units
7,204
Enrolled population (M)
650
653
674
666
674
581
Children in kindergartens (M)
2847
2689
2610
Pupils (M) 4,405 4,325 4,177 4,029 3,824 3,734
2735
2682
2781
Student (M) 907 891 775 673 540 465
Teaching staff (M) 277 275 269 253 247 245
Education abandon rate (percent)
Primary and secondary 2.0 1.7 1.6 1.8 1.8 na
High school and vocational 4.1 3.6 2.9 4.2 4.2 na
Post high school and foremen 4.8 5.9 5.5 6.3 6.1 na
State budget allocation on education 9.1 5.8 4.2 4.0 3.8 3.5
(percent of public budget)
Source: Romanian National Institute of Statistics and authors’ calculation
Yet, some small improvement could be noticed on primary and secondary education abandon rate, which
comprised 1.8 percent in 2012 instead of 2.0 percent in 2008. At the same time, abandon rate within high
school and post high school education increased respectively comprising 4.2 and 6.1 percent in 2012. As
could be observed state allocation on education as was significantly reduced becoming just 3.5 percent
of state budget.
Indeed, we could observe that education has been palpably affected since financial crisis penetrated the
national economy. In this end, further analysis would be an attempt to identify whether and in what extent
the IMF participation helped Romanian government to mitigate adverse effects on education. As was

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