“Choose the School!” Educational Project Coming to a Close
On Tuesday, 24 November 2015, His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church, attended the closing festivity of Choose the School! educational project. The event was held at “Dumitru Staniloae” National Centre of Continuous Formation in Bucharest.
During the festivity, where His Grace Varlaam Ploieșteanul, Assistant Bishop to the Patriarch, was also present, the purposes and results of this educational project initiated by the Romanian Patriarchate were presented.
On this occasion, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel delivered a speech entitled Mission and service through education for reducing the school abandon phenomenon, in which he showed the necessity of the educational programmes for children: “The results of the project emphasised the importance of the moral-religious education for the efficient adaptation of the programmes of counselling and psychological-educational assistance to the cultural and social-economical particularities of our geographic space. The scientific studies and reports also show us that the flexibility of the programmes of “the second chance” type involving school, family, community and the Church seriously reduce the risk to abandon school and increase the chances to reintegrate the children who abandoned school. All these facts show the essential role of the collaboration between family, school and Church in the formative-educational act. It is also known that the Church holds, through its parishes, the most extended institutional network in the country and that it is able to bring a major contribution to the implementation of the programmes of “the second chance” type. Even here the results of the project show once again the necessity of a much closer cooperation between clergy, professors of religion and experts in the field of psychology and educational sciences”. The whole speech can be read here.
Present at the event, Mr Romeo Mosoiu, counsellor of the Minister for Education and Scientific Research, read the message of the minister Adrian Curaj. Then, Daniel Buzducea, executive director of the World Vision Romania Foundation, spoke about the good collaboration between the Romanian Patriarchate and the World Vision Romania Foundation within the partnership.
“Choose the school!” educational project involved 31,954 children, who are at risk to school abandon or who abandoned school rather early, through activities which developed their motivation to go back to the educational system and which cultivated their desire to receive good education, as a chance of better social professional integration.
