Paid higher education in state incumbents allowed till 2013

Only till 2013 will the students from state-owned universities study on a tuition fee basis, according to the new Education Code adopted in final reading Friday. The admission in universities will be made according to merits, the criteria having to be established by the Education Ministry. After 2013 the private universities will not be allowed to use the quarters of state universities, Info-Prim Neo reports . The first course of higher education will be called 'bachelor'. The high school graduates will get lycee diplomas and not baccalaureate degrees as it is now. In the primary cycle, the pupils from the first to the third grades will be marked as “unsatisfactory”, “well” and “excellent”, while the ones from the fourth grade and above – with marks from 10 to 1. These provisions have been included in the code by the Communist MPs (PCRM) and voted also by them. The PCRM voted to finance the education sector proportionally with the economic growth. The opposition parliamentarians say this provision is as ambiguous as the wording “up to 7% of the GDP” and leaves much room for maneuvering to the government. Generally, the opposition factions were dissatisfied that a fair amount of their proposals were neglected. The education committee of the parliament ignored the proposals of Moldova Noastra Alliance (AMN) to establish the average salary of teachers not to be lower than the average salary, to confer the teacher the status of public servants, to decrease the number of pupils on classes and to withdraw the Ministry right to appoint and dismiss schoolmasters. Neither did they accept the AMN's proposal to deprive the President of the right to confirm university rectors. Either the Christian Democrats were unhappy about neglecting their proposals. The Communists rejected to introduce moral-Christian lessons in schools, to establish the Easter vacation, to give the textbooks for free and to render the vocational schools statutes of high schools. As a result the two vocational lycees from Chisinau will be liquidated after the present students end their studies. The Education Code will replace the Education Law of 1995. The draft was developed following a presidential initiative by the Education Ministry after consultations with academicians and teachers.