Romania participates at various cooperation programmes and bilateral and multilateral initiatives in the area of education and professional development – organized based on the international conventions in the field and on the Romanian legislation. These programmes and initiatives promote the exchange of good practices, the harmonization of legislation, the joint coordination of the education policies and strategies, the curriculum, the institutional evaluation and development, the teacher training, etc. The direct exchange of teachers, researchers, students and pupils is considered a key element in the development of multicultural awareness and cultural dialogue.
Focusing on the development of the quality of education and on the international dimension of the pre-university and higher education, Romania participates at the European Union programmes in the area of education and professional development. The main purpose is the development of the European dimension of education, the encouragement of mobility and the facilitation of direct cooperation between the education institutions.
The Ministry of National Education has concluded a series of international cooperation agreements with various states, promoting the exchanges of good practices, the harmonization of legislative frameworks, the coordination of educational policies and strategies, in the area of curriculum elaboration, institutional development, teacher evaluation, teacher training. The direct exchanges of teachers, specialists, researchers, students and pupils are basic elements of the development of multiculturalism and cultural dialogue.
The cooperation programmes and the international initiatives in the field of education and professional development are coordinated at national level by the Ministry of National Education through specialized structures and national agencies:
The General Directorate of International and European Relations
The National Center for Recognition and Equivalence of Diplomas
The National Agency for Community Programmes in the Field of Education and Vocational Training has been established with the purpose to coordinating the action programmes of the European Union in the field of education and training. In the period 2007 - 2014, the agency became responsible for coordinating the European programmes: Lifelong learning, Erasmus Mundus and Youth in Action. In the period 2014 – 2020, ANPCDEFP will coordinate the implementation of the Erasmus+ Programme in Romania, which continues the previous generation of European programmes in the field of education and professional development.
The European Union programmes in the field of education and professional development are coordinated locally by the school inspectorates and by the higher education institutions.
The internationalization of the education is a process with two main related components:
internationalization at home
internationalization abroad.
The internationalization at home consists in strategies and approaches for developing intercultural skills and understandings of the global context, and the internationalization abroad or overseas mainly refers to the cross-boundary mobility of the students, the teaching staff, the researchers and the projects initiated by institutions from various countries.
The higher education institutions are encouraged to develop supplementary mobility options, such as the virtual mobility or to allow the immobile students to have an international experience at home.
Another practical manifestation of the concept of internationalization at home is the presence of foreign experts for evaluation activities in the higher education institutions and in various bodies, councils and committees for the evaluation activities represents an opportunity for the higher education institutions to share experience and added value.