EVOLUȚIA POLITICILOR EDUCAȚIONALE ÎN ROMÂNIA COMUNISTĂ ȘI CONSECINȚELE LOR DIN PERSPECTIVA LIBERTĂȚII ȘI A DREPTURILOR OMULUI

Abstract

The Evolution of Educational Policies in Communist Romania and their Consequences from the Perspective of Freedom and Human Rights.
The establishment and consolidation of the „people’s democracy” regime  determined, after 1948, the radical change of the educational paradigm in a  Romania that gravitated to Moscow’s sphere of influence. The imposition at  the level of education of the Soviet pattern, foreign to the traditions of  Romanian education (previously structured, for decades, according to broadly  European models), induced deep damage to educational customs,  deep interference in university autonomy or violation of freedom of  conscience and human rights (in the conditions of the limitation, and in some  cases of the suppression of religious education, the purges of the teaching  staff and the numerous convictions, to which were submitted both teachers  and students who had no other fault than that they were opposed to forced  ideologization or that they came from families with „unhealthy” origins). To  these was added the obvious introduction of multiple discriminations (short- circuiting the natural path of secondary education for proletarian elements,  with „healthy” origin; the establishment of a system of schools and special  courses with a shorter duration than that provided for in the education law  entered into force in 1948, in order to obtain a coherent base of elements  relatively prepared but favorable to the new regime; the changes of the posts  in the educational system at the pleasure of the regime, the mass layoffs in  order to discretionary re-employ only the elements selected by the new  regime, while the others were reserved a unadapted workplace and inferior  to the training received; the favoring, in the higher education admission  competitions, of the scholarship holders of the popular councils and of the  enterprises, who benefited from 80% of the available places, for the rest of  the candidates, only 20% of the places planned for admission being  allocated), so that not only the right to freedom of thought, conscience and  religion or the right to freedom of opinion and expression were repeatedly  violated, but also the right to equal protection against any discrimination, the  right to free choice of work or the right not to be detained or arbitrarily  arrested. The present study follows the evolution of educational policies in  direct connection with the main norms that regulated the development of  education in communism (the laws of 1948, 1968 and 1978), scoring for each  moment the level of political interference and the degree of violation of  democratic principles.