EVOLUȚIA POLITICILOR EDUCAȚIONALE ÎN ROMÂNIA COMUNISTĂ ȘI CONSECINȚELE LOR DIN PERSPECTIVA LIBERTĂȚII ȘI A DREPTURILOR OMULUI
THE EVOLUTION OF EDUCATIONAL POLICIES IN COMMUNIST ROMANIA AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF FREEDOM AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Summary/Abstract: 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.

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