Who has the right to education in Moldova?

In the higly centralized educational system in Moldova, the Ministry of Education establishes the numbers of students that may enroll in higher education institutions. Particularly, this is a problem for students that want to pursue undegraduate studies in popular areas such as Law, Economics, etc, since the demand for educational services in these areas is greater than universitities are allowed to supply. This policy extends beyond the continuously decreasing number of state scholarships. Now, even students who are capable and willing to pay for an education, often find their freedom of choice limited by Government regulations. It is not clear why a high-school graduate who wants to study economics, is not allowed to. Is it because other, let's say 2,000, high-school graduates also want to study economics this year? Is it because the Government can only guarantee jobs to 2,000 to-be-economists 4-5 years from now? Obviously, none of these reasons is valid. In a democracy, people should be able to freely exercise their right to education, and freedom of choice. The Government should oversee and regulate the quality of educational services, as well as maintain affordable education for poor students, rather than interfere with the market-driven quantity and cost of services.

Vacation- and Lunchtime in Moldova

Life slows down in Chisinau in the summer. Everyone seems to be on vacation. Even my favorite weekly, Economic Overview, has been on vacation for three weeks. There are many differences between life in Moldova and the US, but the way Moldovan organizations approach lunchtime and vacation is most striking to me.

I’m sure the saying ‘time is money’ is well-known in Moldova. However, Moldovan banks, administrative offices, government offices and agencies, post offices, libraries, shops, accounting offices, etc. usually close down for an hour for lunch. The entire office or organization may close, or most frequently, the office that deals with clients/customers. If you need to do business during lunchtime, you have to wait. However, if you are willing to pay ‘extra’ for the lunchtime service, the doors miraculously open. Therefore, the “business” continues during lunchtime. Time really becomes money. I am guessing that lunchtime is most conducive for corrupt activities, and it would not be surprising if lunchtime were the time with the highest number of corrupt transactions and deals.

Service providing organizations closing their doors for lunch or vacation is something unheard of in American cities. Closing down the entire organization for lunch is a practice inherited from the Soviet times, and seems wasteful and inefficient. Why would a bank want all its employees to take lunch at the same time?! Wouldn’t an additional hour of operation bring more business, and revenue?! How does a popular newspaper benefit from not publishing for three weeks? I just cannot imagine New York Times taking a break, not even for a couple of days. If it did, it would mean bad news. The same logic applies to governmental agencies: the employees can take turns in taking their lunchtime; the entire office does not need to close down.

Probably I wouldn’t have written this article today if I a copy of Economic Overview had been available, and I had not spent one hour outside the bank to make a deposit.

Tourism in Moldova: A Comparative Perspective

I have just returned from a vacation in Europe. I was a tourist in Italy and France for about two weeks. In Italy I traveled in Tuscany and Umbria, and in France I discovered Paris and Brittany (the Crozon Peninsula). Tourism is well-developed in both countries, and supported by both national and European governments. Overall, my traveling experience was very satisfying, regardless of annoying details like luggage lost in the airports, language barriers, unexpected changes in weather, time and budget constraints.

Throughout my vacation, I could not stop wondering why a similar experience is still not possible in Moldova. Why is tourism in Moldova still such a foreign concept? The main tourists attractions of Tuscany are its landscapes, wines and well-preserved medieval towns. Moldova abounds in beautiful landscapes, boasts a large wine-making industry, and inherited a number of medieval fortresses and many old churches and monasteries. Why hasn’t Moldova started marketing these assets in order to attract the tourists from all over the world? Why is the Moldovan government still so passive when it comes to tourism? Moldova needs to strive to become a competitive tourist destitation, and it has no time to waste.

The first place where a tourist learns about a country is in its airports and airplanes. For example, Romania is advertising its beautiful tourist attractions via short documentary films with English subtitles on Tarom aircrafts. It is noteworthy that the films are targeted for both national and international travelers. Special magazines published by Alitalia, Air France and Tarom are another tool of marketing the countries’ attractions through exciting articles and photographs. Air Moldova offers the Open Skies magazine, which has a pretty good balance of articles on Moldovan topics.

There is plenty of all kind of tourist information in the French and Italian airports, as well as in all the towns and tourists destinations in these two countries. In Moldova, however, the airport offers very little materials and information of what to do in Moldova. In Chisinau, such information is limited and difficult to access. No information for tourists exists beyond the limits of its capital, Chisinau.

What is there to do in Moldova? What is worth visiting in this country? Where to start? Where to stay overnight? Who to call? When can one rent a car or a bicycle? For tourists intending to travel to France and Italy similar questions can be easily answered after a 2-3 hour research in Internet. As a Moldovan, I find very limited useful information on tourism in Moldova in Internet. Try to do such a research, and please let me know what you find!

I like traveling, and I’d gladly spend my weekends ‘consuming’ tourist services in Moldova. I’d like to cycle through Moldovan countryside, I’d like to be able to rent a car and stay overnight somewhere nice. However, this is wishful thinking. And it will remain a dream until I, as a tourist, can benefit from three essential things: security, information, and all types of infrastructure.

What Is the Future of Transportation in Chisinau?

Public transportation is one of the most serious problems in Chisinau. National experts agree with the problem, and apparently they agree with the solution. Recently, the City Council discussed the Roads & Transport Infrastructure Strategy. The document proposes approaching the current problem by unloading the most concentrated roads intersections, for example Stefan cel Mare Boulevard and its intersection with Ismail street. The Strategy proposes to achieve this by building bi-level intersections. New construction is to be heavily regulated around these areas. The main idea is to avoid construction of new roads in the central part of Chisinau, as such works are deemed very expensive. New roads are to be built between various districts of the city, which will significantly decrease the transit time, and will clear out the downtown. Regarding public transportation, trolleybuses and buses are given priority in the Strategy, while the marshrutkas will remain private means of transportation subject the supply/demand fluctuations. The cost of the Strategy is 3.47 billion MDL (over 250 million USD), of which 44.8% are expected from the municipal budget, 43.2% - national budget, 11.8% - grants, and 0.2% from private sources. The City Council accepted the Strategy as a basis for Chisinau transportation development but delayed the approval of the implementation plan until the City General Urban Plan is developed and approved. Main source: Economic Overview/Logos Press http://logos.press.md/Weekly/Main.asp?IssueNum=664&IssueDate=23.06.2006&YearNum=24&Theme=109&Topic=0….

According to several experts’ opinions expressed in various issues of Moldova Urbana (a publication of Habitat Moldova Center http://www.habitatmoldova.org/), overall, this Strategy is not a bad one, and is most likely to find support in various circles. There were ideas about introducing a tramway (Alexandr Boldesco, Anatolii Gordeev). The future of the central part (both the historical and administrative) is the most debated topic among urban development specialists, architects and city management.

What’s Up with State Companies in Moldova?

The number of state-owned companies in Moldova ranges from 356 to 465, according to different sources. Such companies include public utilities, educational institutions, healthcare facilities, and cultural institutions. Their financial situation and performance has been deteriorating over the last decades. Therefore, the Moldovan Parliament intends to introduce a new approach in state company management. The proposed piece of legislation intends to introduce basic corporate management principles such as transparent financial management and accountability. (See more here: http://logos.press.md/Weekly/Main.asp?IssueNum=663&IssueDate=16.06.2006&YearNum=23&Theme=7&Topic=18736 )

However, the biggest challenge in implementing such a reform seems to be the obvious conflict of interest. The current management of state companies will have to change their quasi-transparent work habits overnight, which is very unlikely to happen. To enforce accountability and limit corruption, the plan is to have representatives from the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Economy and Trade account for the majority of board membership. Therefore a major assumption is made: employees from these two ministries are exemplary enforcers of law, and are incorruptible. Unfortunatelly, this is a far-fetched assumption. Therefore, the question remains: Who will supervise the supervisor? My concern is that this piece of legislation, although apparently reformative, will fail to be implemented properly, and perpetuate the already anecdotally stagnant and reform-resistant governance in Moldova.

How Open is Moldovan Higher Education to Innovation?

I successfully completed the Muskie Program – a program designed to provide young professionals from the NIS countries with graduate American education and financed by US Department of State. I returned to Moldova, my home country, with the aim to find a job. Open Society Institute (OSI) – one of the organizations that co-sponsored this program offers the 2006 Muskie graduates an opportunity to apply for a grant to develop and teach a course in a higher education institution. At first this seems like a great idea. However, the truth is that the highly centralized system of higher education in Moldova is so rigid that teaching a new course to undergraduate or graduate students is almost impossible. All existing courses are part of an officially approved Course Plan, so introducing a new course is very difficult. Secondly, the existing courses are primarily being taught by PhD graduates, which is common everywhere. The competition for vacancies to teach these existing courses is fierce, which is again, very common, particularly in Europe.

This situation shows how difficult it is for innovative thinking (in the form of new, challenging, interdisciplinary courses) to get through and be accepted in the Moldova higher education system.

According to an article by Ralph Darendorf in Logos Press (16 June, 2006), European universities have several important weaknesses, such as conformity, limited diversity, freedom and accountability, a reduced level of ambition, high level of bureaucracy, and insufficient financing. Darendorf argues that the only way universities in Europe, Japan, Southern Korea, China and India can progress is to increase their level of flexibility and openness. I agree with this view, and based on my own experience, believe that Moldovan and Romanian universities could learn a lot from American universities by opening their doors for professionals like me who studied abroad and are willing to act as agents of change and innovation.

Moldova Is Opening to Americans & Western Europeans

Finally, the Moldovan Government is doing something smart: cancelling the visa requirement for citizens of EU, Switzerland, USA, Canada and Japan (Moldova Azi http://www.azi.md/news?ID=39391) As of January 2007, visitors from these countries will not need a visa to enter Moldova. This is good news for the stagnating tourism industry, as well as for the Moldovan economy in general. I keep my fingures crossed that this piece of legislation is voted by the Parliament.