Change and Continuity in the Higher Education System

In the 1980s, the Romanian Higher Education System (HES) was isolated from its European counterparts. Few Romanian academics could participate in scientific events, pursue degrees, or access scholarly literature from abroad, and all of them had to teach courses imbued by communist propaganda and Marxism-Leninism. Once communism collapsed, the HES faced external and internal challenges. It revamped the curriculum for diplomas and degrees in line with the European Union (EU) requirements to participate in the European education market (framed by the Bologna Process after 1999). At the same time, it responded to an increased demand for university degrees, incorporated new private universities, and offered new specializations required by the labor market. Successive governments have failed to adequately finance the HES, provide a coherent legislative framework, and foster quality or respect for ethics. This chapter traces the evolution of change and continuity in the HES, and some of its most unpalatable features: the presence of so-called “diploma factories,” plagiarism, and nepotism.