Austria, Romania to provide Moldova with assistance to improve quality in IT education

Chisinau, 7 December /MOLDPRES/ - Austria and Romania will provide Moldova with assistance to improve the quality in the vocational education in the information technologies sector, under an agreement signed by the Romanian government and the Austrian Development Agency today. The project is estimated at almost 700,000 euros.  

Romanian Ambassador to Moldova Marius Lazurca told a today news conference that the agreement had a duration of three years. Under the accord, regulations on the work of the National Agency for Ensuring Quality in Vocational Education will be developed. Other beneficiaries of the project are an excellency centre in the IT field and over 20 vocational schools and colleges with specialties in the IT and Communications area.

Also, the Agency's employees will pay study visits to Romania, to meet colleagues of the counterpart institution from Bucharest. According to Marius Lazurca, another goal is to help the Moldovan agency establish partnerships with similar institutions from other European Union member states.

For his part, the head of the Coordination and Technical Cooperation Bureau at the Austrian Embassy to Chisinau, Gerhard Schaumberger, said that the institution he led had recently set an agreement, under which it would continue the cooperation in the education sector with Moldova in the next five years.

"We focus more on education and vocational training, as we are sure that the human resources represent one of the key factors for the creation of new jobs, increasing salaries and safer life in Moldova. In continuation, we will put special emphasis on professional experience at the same time. We will also focus on the information technologies field. In all these efforts, the quality is the key factor, in order to become competitive in the long run,"  Gerhard Schaumberger said. 

Over 500,000 euros of the project's overall value of 700,000 euros is provided by the Austrian Development Agency, 70,000 euros - by the Romanian government, almost 90,000 euros - by the U.S. Agency for International Development and another 25,000 euros - by the National Association of Companies in IT and Communications sector. The organisations implementing the project are the Pro-Didactica Education Centre and the National Association of Companies in IT and Communications sector. 

(Reporter D. Moraru, editor A. Raileanu)