Recent data from the National Statistics Institute INS show that there were some 3.73 million children, students and trainees in Romania’s national education system in the 2014/2015 school/university year. They represented 73.9% of the total school-age population.

Slightly over 50% of the total school population included in the education system were male students, while 70.1% studied in urban areas.

The number of students in the vocational education system almost doubled compared to the previous school year, reaching 50,800 in 2014/2015. However, the vocational education continued to attract the lowest number of students (1.4% of the total school population).

High schools and universities registered the most pronounced decline in the number of students registered in the 2014/2015 school year, compared to the previous year (minus 49,500 students, and minus 37,100 students respectively).

Almost 57% of the education units in Romania were mainly destined to primary and secondary education, and 22.1% were used as high schools, according to INS. Moreover, 95.5% of Romania’s school population studied in public schools, and only 4.5% were registered in private schools.

More than 541,000 students were registered in Romanian universities in the 2014/2015 school year, and over 53% of them were women, the data shows. The most attractive specializations were business, management and law (25.3% of total students), and engineering, processing and construction (21.4%).

There were 244,600 teachers in the local education in the 2014/2015 school year, which means an average of 15 children/students per teacher. Most of the teachers in Romania’s education system were women (76.3%), according to INS.

The data also shows that most of the education system’s material base is found in the public education network: 96.8% of the total number of classrooms, 95% of the schools labs, 72.5% of the swimming pools, 96.2% of the gyms, 98.1% of the workshops, and 96.8% of the sports fields.

Romanian Minister: Education budget to reach 4.5% of the GDP next year

Irina Popescu, irina.popescu@romania-insider.com