higher romanian education post-bologna: required changes, instruments and ethical issues

Abstract

In 1999 Romania became part of the Bologna process, focused on the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System, design to increase the compatibility of European universities, ensuring the mobility of students and professors in the context of re-orienting education to the formation of competences continuously adapted to market requirements. This model draws the new education system closer to American education. The paper analyzes the importance of evaluation, proposing solutions to increase teaching efficiency, and also the often negative influence of promotion criteria, based on their characteristic ethical aspects. The paper underlines the importance of continuous evaluation based on more requirements, resulting into a more correct assessment of performance, but also the evaluation of the efficiency of the course and instructor by the students, proposing its assignment to an independent structure to diminish the bias of results. The paper also analyses the importance of promotion criteria based on the scientific activity and management of research in the detriment of focusing on teaching. The implications relate to the fact that management of research does not measure teaching performance or the professional profile, while scientometric measurements of results have profound ethical consequences, leading to a distorted scientific behavior and neglected teaching duties.