SCHOLAR: EDUCATION IN MOLDOVA

In contemporary terms, Moldova emerged from the Soviet Union in ruins.  Moldova was apparently named after a Romanian prince’s favorite dog named Moldova.  Moldova gained independence under prince Bogdan in 1359.  A notable person in Moldovan history is Stephen the Great (1957 – 1504) who protected Moldova against the invading Ottoman empire.  Stephen defeated the Turks and Wallachian forces with over 100,000 men (Worden 2014, page 21).  Today Moldovan consist of 90% Orthodox Christian (Worden 2014, page 21).  In 1538 the Ottomans finally captured Moldova although they never fully incorporated it the empire because local princes kept administrative control of the region.  Turkish Moldova became ignored and neglected although its elite where highly influenced by Turkish customs.  Before the Bucharest Treaty where the Russians annexed the eastern part of the country, Moldova was battling the Ottomans, Hapsburgs and Russians.  It was the Russians that are credited for bringing literacy to Moldova.  They also built roads and schools.  Tens of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians settled into the country under the delegation of Russian authorities.  In the second half of the nineteenth century, Russians pushed for mandating the Russian language to be used in Moldova.  In 1859 the remaining portion of Moldova, the western part, which was untouched formed what is Romania (Worden 2014, page 22).  In 1917 the Tsarist regime was dismantled this resulted in the Moldovan Democratic Republic (Worden 2014, page 23).  By March 1918 Moldova voted to unite with Romania.  By 1944 Soviets regained control of Moldova (Worden 2014, page 23).  They re-established boundaries.  This time they would shape the identity of the republics population.  They did this by creating a distinct national Moldovan identity.  The project is also known as, “Sovietization” (Worden 2014, page 24).  They were looking to incorporate this population to the larger Soviet peoples.  Moreover, the Soviets replaced the Latin alphabet with Cyrillic alphabet and by 1989 (Worden 2014, page 24), Moldovan became the national language.  In August 1991, the Moldovan parliament declared independence from the Soviet Union (Worden 2014, page 25). This would evidently form the Republic of Moldova.  With this, questions of reunification with Romania emerged.  Parties fought for support as people became divided.  There are three views points in the 1990’s that claim to explain the identity of the Moldovan people, they are as follows, Pan- Romanian, Eurasianist and Basarabisim.  The Pan- Romanian supported its heritage with Romanian.  Eurasianist however, sided with the Russian or Soviets.  And lastly, Basarabisim is a combination of both.  By Mid 2004 the Party of Communists of the Republic of Moldova (PCRM) pushed to develop a distinct Moldovan identity.  This was a major part of their political platform.  This would be the beginning of the textbook controversy the country would experience in the future.  The confusion that colonization by the Ottomans and the Soviets would only add insult to injury as the government attempts to craft a unique identity.  

It was the use of Moldovan as the national language that encouraged educated professionals to revisit the idea of the history curriculum.  Up until that point, the Moldovan government was not as wealthy as other nations in Europe, they emerged in ruins from the Soviets, therefore, they used books donated by the Romanians.  The two books at the center of this subject of contention is the History of the Romanians and World History (Worden, 2014).  The PCRM announced that they would replace these textbooks.  With funding from the Council of Europe and EUROCLIO the PCRM would engage in what they believed to be nation building however, people would revolt claiming that the PCRM was falsifying the countries history.  The plan was to eliminate the two separate history courses pertaining to the two textbooks and create a single unified course which included aspects of both textbooks.  There were many critics of this approach as once replaced, people accused the government in glorifying the Soviets and denying ethnic Romanian identity.  Despite these claims, the government would push forward with their plans to modify the curriculum.  This resulted in an Integrated History course.  Teachers received little support or training from the government about this new material which caused educators to revert to teaching what they were teaching before the changes. 

The government was mainly concerned with creating an identity for the people to relate to, so that they may become citizens of Moldova.  The weapon by which this would be accomplished is the national history curriculum.  The government wanted people to develop a sense of patriotism for their country.  THE PCRM built their platform on attempting to create this national identity.  They wanted to unite the country and restore Moldova’s integrity.  Issues arose of the need to tell the truth about the Moldovan nation.  The party wanted to form citizens consciousness (Worden, 2014).  The people needed to understand the past so that they may be able to understand the future.  The books that were created resulting from the PCRM’s campaigns were accused of lies, one such lie is that Moldovans were Romanian people.  The government needed to create the democratic person, a citizen.  The social memory of being a submissive people is still evident as Moldova has been a nation that was conquered on many occasions.  This was a problem for the PCRM’s campaign for an independent Moldova.  In short, the PCRM was engaged in nation building.  They wanted to instil European values.  There were some that believed that history had been falsified on so many occasions that the Moldonvan people lost their grasp of their identity.  For example, the Soviets pushed, “Sovietization,” effectively denying Moldovans of an identity.  A compromise had to be reached and the way forward was through the history curriculum.  Moldova looked to Europe when adopting its Integrated History curriculum.  They saw that all of Europe had been doing this and evidently chose to follow.  Another issue was that the government needed to build a free-thinking citizen capable of critical thinking.  They would do this through increasing the student-centered approach of the books. 
                

Teachers, although are directly employed under the government had a distrust of the government and the new Integrated History course.  The curricula and exams are also determined by the Ministry of Education.  They provided little assistance to teachers teaching the course which caused problems.  Teachers generally believed they were working to the best of the interest of the students.  The democratic and political values are deemed as new values while traditional values were lost causing problems in the teaching of students civic responsibility (Worden, 2014).  The traits of being a patient people, hard working and submissive really resonated with teachers when prompted for explanations of the kind of people whom they think Moldova represents.  Generally a feature of Moldovan society is the distrust of the state.  People believed that the state couldn’t be trusted to write the curriculum of Integrated History because they would politicize it.  The problem with this is if a new political party gains power, the history would be rewritten again which would cause more confusion with national identity.  Teachers don’t earn much in Moldova, many have relatives supporting them and or working outside of the country.  Schools receive minimal funding, in fact, some schools are subsidized by wealthy parents.  Many teachers believed they were not living in a democratic society as they feel that disconnection, isolation or abandonment by the state.  Many teachers rejected the books that were made by the government.  It will take years to adjust to the changes.  

Lastly, Students were a major part of the introduction of the Integrated History course by the government.  These people were excluded from the reform.  Students at the time of the book were very socialized into the culture of the internet of things such as Twitter and Facebook.  These people felt disconnected from the government often distrusting the state.  From the perspective of political citizenship, they felt that the government wasn’t promoting or pursing the right legislation.  However, when looked at from the perspective of economic citizenship, they felt that their inability to find a job in Moldova was the states fault.  Lastly from the view of social citizenship, students felt that the state didn’t give them the kind of support that their parents received.  Students therefore felt that the state was corrupt and they explain many examples of this.  They felt that the government doesn’t respect their rights.  When the subject matter of the new curricula is considered, students generally didn’t care about identity but the government made it a big political issue.  They felt that identity became a political tool which distracts from actual issue and sways votes.  

I think the issue of Moldova is an interesting issue to the subject of comparative politics because the government was left to decide how it was they would approach the identity factor.  Moldova was always a nation that was under the control of another, and especially during the Soviet reign, Moldovan’s were not given the right to know about their identity.  It is therefore clear as to why the issue of the introduction of the Integrated History textbooks was a subject of contention.  The Moldovan government needed to do what other countries in Europe were doing and through this, they followed the EUROCLIO and Europe’s instructions but the matter of not providing teachers with clear enough instructions on how to teach the courses was an issue that the government could have improved on.  The PCRM was directly involved in nation building when they decided to make this issue a major part of their platform.  Moldova really needed to separate from the Romanians and form their own unique identity as they have become a separate nation, otherwise they may be at risk for another cultural invasion.