Yesterday, 5 December, the Programme for Education, Scholarships, Apprenticeships and Youth Entrepreneurship (2014 – 2021) financed by Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein was launched in the presence of Her Excellency, Mrs Lise Nicoline Kleven Grevstad, the Ambassador of Norway in Romania and Mr Marius Nica, the Minister Delegate for European Funds.
„I am very proud to be here at the launching of the first Programme financed under the new period 2014 – 2021. It is an important event given the fact that it addresses education, and we know that the Government gives special attention to this field. The Romanian Government started the negotiations for the SEE Financial Mechanism 2014 – 2021 2 years ago, and convinced the Donor States to increase the allocation from almost 300 million Euros to 500 million Euros for all fields, like justice, local development and health. Through this Programme we are launching today with an average of 14 million Euros, more that 12 million Euros are allocated to increasing the access to vocational education and training, tertiary education and life learning education which gives the possibility to better prepare people for the labour market – another objective for our Government.“, said Mr Marius Nica.
The Norwegian ambassador mentioned: „I am so happy to contribute to the launching of the new Programme. Giving all boys and girls in all countries a high quality education is the very best investment that we can make for the future… Romania is the first country to sign the Memorandum of Understanding, so congratulations! […]
I want to commend the Programme Operator and its partners in Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein for the excellent work in the previous period. You are already champions and I trust you will finish in the same way in some 5 to 6 years!
I encourage all of you to think in creative terms and to achieve more. I think education, research and innovation are excellent instruments to achieve partnerships across borders.“
Representatives of the programme partners, Mrs Veena Gill – from the the Norwegian Centre for International Cooperation in Education (SIU) – and Mrs Marion Kindle-Kuehnis – from the National Agency for International Education Affairs of Liechtenstein – had online interventions.
Mr. Cătălin Amza, coordinator of the project “Augmented Reality for Technical Entrepreneurs”, from the CAMIS Center of the Polytechnic University of Bucharest, offered an interactive presentation of this project, financed under the 2009-2014 Financial Mechanism.
The programme, bringing EUR 14 million onto the Romanian educational market, will finance:
- For Higher Education Institutions: students and teaching staff mobilities from Romania to the Donor States and from the Donor States to Romania.
- The inter-institutional cooperation in higher education, focusing on the exchange of best practices in the field of teaching methodology and the organisation of short-term exchanges for students.
- Actions aimed at improving skills and competences of the educational experts via mobilities for school inspectors, counselors, teacher trainers and also including educational support.
- Quality improvement in vocational schools, with emphasis on schools that have concluded partnerships with companies for students’ traineeships.
- Capacity building of schools in order to support a better inclusion of Roma children.
The first call, dedicated to the mobilities of students and teachers in higher education, for the academic year 2018-2019, was also launched yesterday.
The call is open until 5 February 2018 and has a budget of EUR 1 000 000.
Support material: Mrs Monica Calotă presentation
You can watch the event on the eea4edu Romania Youtube channel.
