Romania Secondary Education Project

The development objectives of the Secondary Education Project for Romania are to improve the transition from upper secondary into tertiary education and increase the retention in the first year of tertiary education in project-supported education institutions. The project comprises of three components. The first component, school-based and systemic interventions will finance supply-side interventions at the school and system levels to address the academic and personal factors hindering Romanian students from transitioning from upper secondary to tertiary education, including dropping out, declining to take the Baccalaureate, or scoring a low mark on the Baccalaureate. It consists of following two sub-components: school-based interventions and systemic interventions. The second component, university-level interventions and bridge programs aim to support the needs of students who are at risk of dropping out of public faculties in the first year of study. It will finance two grant schemes - one non-competitive and one competitive - for public universities that serve these at-risk students. The third component, project management, monitoring and evaluation (M and E) will finance day-to-day project management activities, M and E activities, project audits, as well as operational and staffing costs of the Ministry of Education and Scientific Research's (MESR's) unit for externally financed projects.