Romanian Educational System Categories: in Romania the education offered in the public system is free and the compulsory education is of 10 years.
The educational system is divided in the following categories:
1. pre-university education
2. university education
3. continuouse education (post-university)
1. Pre-University education
a. Pre-school education: first group, second group, third group and pre-school group (children aged 3 to 6 years).
b. Primary education: 1st to 4th grade (starting children aged 6). In the primary education the curriculum includes the following topics:
• language and communication (Romanian language and a foreign language),
• math and sciences,
• human and society (civic education, history, geography),
• arts (fine arts education, musical education),
• sports,
• technology (practical abilities and technological education),
• religion
c. Secondary education: the curriculum includes the following topics:
• Romanian language;
• foreign language (usually 2 foreign languages are studied in the secondary education in Romania, the most studied foreign languages being: English, French, German, Italian and Spanish);
• mathematics,
• physics,
• chemistry,
• biology and anatomy,
• geography,
• history,
• civic education,
• fine arts education,
• music education,
• technological education, etc.
The secondary education is divided into:
• Gymnasium (lower secondary education) – 5th to 8th grade.
• High school (upper secondary education) - 9th to 12th or 13th grade (the 13th grade is attended in the vocational high-schools). The high-schools can be:
– Theoretical (human or real section).
– Technological (technical, services, natural resources exploitation, environmental protection and so on).
– Vocational (military, technological, sportive, artistic or pedagogical).
• Professional education - 1 to 3 years - this type of education is preparing the students for a special job (e.g.: car mechanic, plumber, professional driver, etc.)
2. Superior education
Includes:
• university education (3 to 5 years) or
• post-university education :
– thoroughgoing university studies;
– master,
– post-university academic studies;
– doctoral studies;
– post-university studies for specialization or for further improvement
3. Continuous education that allows either classical training, distance training and training by correspondence.
In every city the educational system foresees the existence of "Special logopedic centers". The specialists in these centers are psychologists, pedagogs or specialists in special psycho-pedagogy) and their role is to guide the teachers in using the necessary methods for children’s language development and correction.
The teachers are divided into several categories:
- Preschool teachers - that can have medium studies (pedagogical high school) or college studies (specialization in pre-school education in an institutor’s college)
- Primary school teachers - that can have medium studies (pedagogical high school) or college studies (specialization in pre-school education in an institutor’s college)
- Teachers for the other type of formal education - these are the teachers for any of the other type of school levels.
- These teachers must have university studies in the field they are teaching and also the special psycho-pedagogical module (that can be optionally attended by any university student).
- Depending on their experience, the teachers can have different degrees (2nd degree after 4 years of activity and a series of exams, 1st degree after 8 years of activity and another series of exams).
There is no specialization for adult education teachers. Any teacher can provide adult education courses on his specialization without any other specialized training.
The school year in Romania for secondary and post-secondary non tertiary education comprises two semesters, two holidays during the school year and a summer holiday.

Apulum

“Apulum” Technical College was created more than 30 years ago and over the years it became a representative technical and professional educational institution in our country, especially in the ceramics, leather-textile and footwear fields.
In our educational institution there are 56 classrooms, having 1351 students, being divided into several levels: primary level – traditional and step by step, gymnasium – the 5th – the 8th grade, high-school – the 9th – the 12th grade, including evening classes and professional school. For the high-school level, we offer theoretical and technological fields (mathematics, computer science, nature science, natural resources and environment protection, building materials industry, leather-textile industry, ceramic industry, footwear industry, the human body aesthetics and hygiene, etc.)
Due to this large number of qualifications our school can give a very complex educational offer that can easily be adapted to the requirements of the working market in Alba Iulia and in our county. This thing gives our students the opportunity of attending university or finding a proper job.
We can also offer a large number of special courses for adult education in the fields mentioned above.
782 of our students are young adults or adults being more than 16 years old. Most of them are also having a proper job and they are simultaneously improving their studies in our school.
There are 93 qualified teachers teaching in “Apulum” Technical College Alba Iulia and 31 auxiliary employees.
“Apulum” Technical College has 4 different building where you can find classrooms, special labs, including informatics labs, a ceramic workroom with a big furnace, leather workrooms and footwear workrooms, ready-made clothes workrooms, an embellishment salon. The college has also a sport hall that was built in 2004, thanked to a governmental project.
Most of our students are duty students which are not having learning or behavior problems. For these, the family structure differs from families that are very well structured and single-parent families.
Even if the school is situated in an urban area, a great number of students come from a rural disadvantaged area with certain social problems. These are disfavored areas from the economical point of view because there are not enough working places and the employment possibilities are reduced. That’s why in these areas there is a permanent migrating phenomenon to other parts of the country or even to other countries. As a consequence of this phenomenon, there are a lot of young adults/students that are being taking care by their grandparents, relatives, brothers or even neighbors. Many of them are home alone being obligated to manage themselves. A part of these young adults proceeded from minorities or they are young adults with special needs.
We all are also trying to focus our activity on the young adults at risk of social disadvantage and school drop-out.
50 from our students are including in the special educational system, and 48 of them are young adults having difficulties in expressing themselves, in communication, in the learning process and sometimes they can also have bad behaviors that are turning towards peer violence or bullying phenomena. 15 of these are coming from the specialized institutions (7 young adults are coming from the special educational institutions and 8 from the home-grown children/orphanages); the rest - 33 of them are living with their family, relatives and friends or by themselves.
For these young adults we offer the qualifications in the following fields: leather and substitutes confections worker, ceramic industry worker, leather and substitutes articles of clothing manufacturer.