Restart in Education: MEC proposes reform to take effect in Chișinău, Bălți and Gagauzia starting in 2028

Minister of Education and Research Dan Perciun announced today that he has sent Parliament a set of amendments to Restart in Education reform, which provides for transferring schools from the authority of local councils to that of the MEC, through territorial education agencies. One of the amendments stipulates that in the municipalities of Chișinău and Bălți and in Gagauzia, the new provisions will come into force in 2028, one year later than in the rest of the country.

Dan Perciun explained the reasons behind the proposal to postpone by one year the implementation of the reform in Chișinău, Bălți and Gagauzia. According to him, the causes are different in each of the three cases. In the case of Chișinău, the reason given is to provide a respite for solving the real problems of the municipality’s schools, including overcrowding, inclusion of children with special educational needs, informal payments and the failure to fully utilize the resources allocated from the state budget for education.

“In Chișinău, the municipal authorities have opposed the reform and blocked its preparation. We are giving them one more year. But this year must be used to demonstrate that the current management model they are defending can solve the real problems of the capital’s schools. First of all, overcrowding. We have schools where children study in overcrowded conditions and, at the same time, institutions where there are available places. This is a problem we have been discussing for years and for which we are waiting for concrete solutions. We have problems related to the inclusion of children with special educational needs and the support they receive in schools. We have the problem of informal payments, where parents continue to be put in a position to contribute money, although there are mechanisms through which these contributions can be made transparently and legally. And we have millions of lei allocated annually from the state budget for education in the municipality that remain unused. It should be noted that over 90% of the budget of Chișinău schools comes from the Government. Chișinău has very good teachers, students with very good results and many high-performing institutions. Precisely for this reason, we believe that the municipal administration must demonstrate that it can also solve these systemic problems. It has an extra year to do this,” explained Dan Perciun.

At the same time, according to the minister, in the case of the municipality of Bălți, it was decided to apply a uniform approach with that chosen for the municipality of Chișinău. Local authorities will use this one-year respite mainly to transfer schools to financial self-management and to clarify certain aspects related to the delimitation of properties.

“In the case of the municipality of Bălți, we had a very good and constructive discussion with the local authorities. From our point of view, we would have been ready to implement the reform starting in 2027. However, we decided to have a uniform approach for Chișinău and Bălți, as municipalities with a distinct status. In Bălți, this time frame will be used mainly for transferring schools to financial self-management and for clarifying certain aspects related to the delimitation of properties,” argued the Education minister.

Perciun noted that, in the case of Gagauzia, the proposal to postpone the reform comes as a result of the fact that a series of political and institutional processes are currently taking place in the autonomy, which must be concluded this year. This situation determines the proposal for the changes to enter into force in 2028.

“The situation in Gagauzia is also distinct. The autonomy has a special legal status, and the ‘Restart in Education’ reform does not entail changing the subordination of schools in the autonomy, taking into account the provisions of the special law. At the same time, a series of political and institutional processes are underway in the autonomy, which must reach a conclusion this year. Under these circumstances, we consider it reasonable for 2028 to be the year when the applicable provisions of the reform enter into force in ATU Gagauzia,” emphasized Perciun.

The minister stated that the draft law could be voted by Parliament in the second reading by the end of August or the beginning of September. In parallel, the MEC is working with local education departments on preparing the implementation of the reform.

“Our direction remains unchanged: we want a system in which the quality of a child’s education does not depend on the locality where that child studies,” concluded Dan Perciun.

The draft law on Restart in Education reform was voted by Parliament in the first reading on 30 July this year. It provides that schools in the Republic of Moldova will come under the authority of the MEC, through the establishment of Territorial Education Agencies, which will replace the current local education departments. The reform aims to streamline administrative processes and strengthen quality standards in education so that every child has equal access to quality education, regardless of locality.