PNL's Turcan: PNL promises no child will be left behind

Deputy PM Raluca Turcan appreciated as "exemplary" the involvement in the past couple of months of the civil society in supporting the state authorities to help the children from the disadvantaged environments with their education and said that PNL promises that "no child will be left behind." "Today, together with the Minister of Education, Monica Anisie, we've had a chance to consult with some civil society organisations which are implementing an educational programme for children coming from the disadvantaged environments. We have tried to find out how we can help these children to have access to good quality education in increasing numbers. In the past couple of months, civil society got involved in an exemplary manner in supporting the state authorities to help those among us who are the most vulnerable. This involvement proved that the state was not alone in its effort to not leave these children behind," Turcan wrote on Facebook on Friday. According to the Deputy PM, the organisations presented the programmes that they have implemented and proposed solutions to reduce the existing gap in what concerns the access to learning and to increase access and participation of children to good quality education. Among the ideas and solutions proposed, Turcan mentioned: the children coming from the disadvantaged environments need well trained and motivated teachers, unitary educational programmes and an approach of their problems that will take into account the entire system perspective; digital education must also be granted special attention when it comes to vulnerable children (of Roma ethnicity or children with disabilities) in order to prevent the widening of equity gaps; integrate measures to take into account the social, educational and health dimensions; digital education must include equipment, applications and resource, and also the development of digital skills. Turcan also said that, although "PNL has governed during a time of crisis, and under very much pressure," it managed to solve a series of problems that were delayed "by too many governments." Among the measures adopted by the PNL, in the past months, Turcan enumerated: free transportation, on all transportation means; allocation of funds to buy 250,000 tablets connected to the Internet; financing the pilot-programme "Meal at School"; the allocation of 30 million euros for a project funded with European money aimed at helping children whose parents left the country to work abroad. "We have created the Didactic Master's Programme to train 400 teachers this autumn; we prepared the documentation for the project in order to be able to offer, in the shortest time, from European money, after-school type of programmes; our future actions will be coordinated with representatives of the civil society and we will meet the real needs of the society, especially in those places where the COVID crisis has deepened ever more the social inequities," said Turcan. AGERPRES (RO - author: Livia Popescu, editor: Claudia Stanescu; EN - author: Cristina Zaharia, editor: Adina Panaitescu)