Moldova

Partners situated in Moldova

None.

Moldova in a nutshell

(sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldova)

Moldova, officially the Republic of Moldova (Republica Moldova) is a country in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east and south. The country is landlocked, even though it is very close to the Black Sea.

Its population is just over 4 million.

Its capital is (and largest city) is Chişinău.

Moldova is a parliamentary democracy with a president as head of state and a prime minister as head of government. It is a member state of the United Nations, Council of Europe, WTO, OSCE, GUAM, CIS, BSEC and other international organizations.

Moldova currently aspires to join the European Union, and has implemented the first three-year Action Plan within the framework of the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP).

Moldova enjoys a favorable climate and good farmland but has no major mineral deposits. As a result, the economy depends heavily on agriculture, featuring fruits, vegetables, wine, and tobacco. The economy contracted dramatically following the fall of the Soviet Union. Currently, Moldova is the poorest country in Europe. About a quarter of the population lives on less than US$2 a day.

Moldova is known for its wines. For many years viticulture and winemaking in Moldova were the general occupation of the population. Most of the country's wine production is made for export.

The Constitution of Moldova states that the Moldovan language is the official language, while the Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Moldova names the official language Romanian. The 1989 State Language Law speaks of a "Moldo-Romanian linguistic identity". In 2003, the government of Moldova adopted a national political conception which states that one of the priorities of the national politics of the Republic of Moldova is the insurance of the existence of a Moldovan language. This situation is not unknown in other parts of Europe.

Russian is provided with the status of a "language of interethnic communication" (alongside the official language), and in practice remains widely used on all levels of the society and the state. The above-mentioned national political conception also states that Russian-Moldovan bilingualism is characteristic for Moldova. Gagauz and Ukrainian have significant regional speaker populations and are granted official status together with Russian in Gagauzia and Transnistria respectively.

History

In view of the situation with respect to Transnistria, we unusually add an element of history to the description.

In the Middle Ages, most of the present territory of Moldova was part of the Principality of Moldavia. In 1812, it was annexed by the Russian Empire, and became known as Bessarabia. Between 1856 and 1878, the southern part was returned to Moldavia. In 1859 it united with Wallachia to form modern Romania.

Upon the dissolution of the Russian Empire in 1917, an autonomous, then-independent Moldavian Democratic Republic was formed, which joined Romania in 1918. In 1940, Bessarabia was occupied by the Soviet Union and was split between the Ukrainian SSR and the newly created Moldavian SSR.

After changing hands in 1941 and 1944 during World War II, the territory of the modern country was subsumed by the Soviet Union until its independence on December 25, 1991. Moldova was admitted to the UN in March 1992.

In September 1990, a breakaway government was formed in Transnistria, a strip of Moldavian SSR on the east bank of the river Dniester. After a brief war in 1992, it became de facto independent, although no UN member has recognized its independence.

Recent politics in Moldova has been turbulent.

The rest of this article will focus on the part of Moldova not in the breakaway region.

Administrative divisions

Moldova is divided into 32 districts (raioane, singular raion); three municipalities (Bălţi, Chişinău, Bender); and two autonomous regions (Găgăuzia and Transnistria - the latter de facto independent). The cities of Comrat and Tiraspol, and the administrative seats of the two autonomous territories also have municipality status.

Higher education

(sourced from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Moldova)

In Moldova, there are both public and private universities. There are 16 state and 15 private institutions of higher education, with a total of 126,100 students, including 104,300 in the state institutions, and 21,700 in the private ones.

The number of students per 10,000 inhabitants in Moldova has been constantly growing since the collapse of the Soviet Union, reaching 217 in 2000-2001, and 351 in 2005-2006.

There are 6,200 faculty members in Moldova's universities and colleges (on average 1 faculty member per 20.3 students). Out of these, only 2,700 (43%) hold PhD degrees, including 358 (5.8%) that also hold the highest academic degree: Habilitation. Moldovan faculty members usually teach around 20 hours per week (one of the highest workloads in the world).

52.5% of students major in economics, law, social sciences, or in some fields that the Moldovan Ministry of Education calls on its website "professional formation fields", 18.4% study engineering and architecture, 16.0% - education. There are a total of 90 specialities (majors) offered.

101,100 students, or 80.2%, pay for their studies (from 2,000 to 7,300 Moldovan lei per year, i.e. from 120 to 430 euros per year). The state is trying to increase the number of places offered free of charge when students are admitted to public universities: there were 5,085 in 2001, 5,290 in 2002, 5,628 in 2003, 6,354 in 2004, 7,048 in 2005, 7,835 in 2006, but this rate (54% over 5 years) is lower than the rate of increase (65% over the same period) in the total number of places. 15% of the free of charge places are reserved, and distributed to candidates from low-income families. In an effort to support them, the state gives scholarships to 70% of students who occupy the free of charge places, i.e. to 14.4% of the total number of students. As of January 1, 2006, these scholarships are in three categories: 210, 230, or 270 Moldovan lei per month, i.e. 12, 14, or 16 euros per month respectively.

Despite the fact that 75.8% of the population of Moldova is Moldovan and 2.1% is Romanian, only 65% of students study in Romanian. Russians represent 5.9% of population, but 29.8% of students study in Russian. There is little to no education in Ukrainian, Gagauz and Bulgarian, and these minority groups are forced to study in Russian, which is neither their native language, not the official language of the country. Also, 3.9% of students follow their courses in English, French, German, and other languages of international communication.

The National Council on Accreditation and Attestation is an organization that approves the examination programs for doctoral students, confers scientific degrees, and scientific and pedagogical ranks. The Council publishes online all PhD theses that are elaborated and defended in Moldova.

Universities in Moldova

The page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Moldova lists the universities. Only three have Wikipedia pages (which we take as a crude signifier of relevance):

• State University of Moldova, Chişinău - http://www.usm.md/start.aspx (in English)
• Ion Creangă Pedagogical State University, Chişinău - with a useful Wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_Creang%C4%83_Pedagogical_State_University and a web site (not in English) at http://www.upsc.md/
• Imi-Nova International Management Institute, Chişinău - a private institution with a PR-oriented Wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imi-Nova_International_Management_Institute and a web site (not in English - surprisingly) at http://www.imi-nova.md/

Higher education reform

The Bologna Process

(very important for European countries)

Virtual Campuses in HE

Interesting Virtual Campus Initiatives

(another very important section)

Re.ViCa Case-study

None.

References

Wikipedia

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moldova
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Moldova
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_universities_in_Moldova

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