It shows how consistent application of centrally-driven pressure for higher results, combined with extensive capacity building and a climate of relative trust and mutual respect, have enabled the Ontario system to
achieve progress.

Read here.

Far from being complete, we want to share a list of our discoveries, free educational resources for teachers and students.

In Romania:

• Didactic.ro is probably the largest and most dedicated website with resources for teachers.
• British Council offers a platform and resources for anyone wishing to study English.
• Fundatia Potaissa offers some manuals, guides and other non-formal publications concerning the environment and its preservation.
• Stiinta si Tehnica magazine offers everything needed in the science field 

From around the world and in English:

• Questia is a free online library with over 77 000 book titles and 4 million articles just waiting to be read.
• Open University, as the name reveals, is a free online university from the UK, open to students everywhere, with a diverse range of courses and resources.
• The world’s best universities now offer free acces to their professors’ knowledge, through audio/video lectures on a wide range of topics! Such courses, debates, discussions, presentations are offered directly by Harvard, Yale, MIT or Berkeley.
• Open Culture centralizes the free online courses mentioned above, listing about 385 free online courses from top universities, all in one place.
• Open Culture also centralizes hundreds of courses for the study of a foreign language.
• SciCentral is another source of information and resources in the science field.

As already said, the list is not finished. Suggestions for adding to it are more than welcome!

Some of the key findings of the study reveal that:

• as the percentage of Roma students in a school increases, the quality of material resources of the school decreases, material resources such as labs or a sports field
• as the percentage of Roma students in a school increases, the probability that the school owns computers or a library decreases
• the schools with a high percentage of Roma students have less qualified teachers, educators or certified educational counselors
• the number of hours of continuous professional development of teachers and educators is also smaller: on average it is 7 hours, compared to 50 required
• the rate of school abandonment is 9% among Roma students, the most significant factors being first of all poverty (44%) and repeated poor results leading to failing classes (16%)
• the stereotype according to which Roma parents do not send their children to school was invalidated: only 9% of Roma parents did not show an interest in their children’s education, while 90% of parents showed positive attitudes towards education, maintain contact with teachers and encourage their children to obtain good results.

The document represents a useful information resource and we encourage you to read it.

It can be downloaded here.

Bucharest,we have a challenge for you! We want to break the ice around the word DONATION. On December 17 and 18 we will start collecting 10.000 books! This month we won’t be talking about money, but about books. And you, caring people, are the ones that can help us.

Education is not the way it’s supposed to be. There are children and students that don’t have the proper education because they don’t have…books. BOOKS?! Isn’t that how education starts in the first place? Aren’t books the support for learning?

We can debate on this topic the entire month of December or we can raise in these 2 days the books that 3000 children need for an entire year! We are talking about 34 teachers in 10 counties that asked for our help, that have faith that together we can make education happen.

We are waiting for you on December 17 and 18 (Friday and Saturday) at the following collection points:

• British Council, Romania, Calea Dorobantilor nr. 14, (Piata Romana area) Friday between 12.00 and 18.30 hours and Saturday between 9.00 and 13.15
• Centrul National al Dansului, TNB building, north side (acces through Laptaria Enache), third floor (Piata Universitate area), Friday and Saturday between 9.00 and 18.00 hours

The books that are needed are those from core and supplementary school reading materials, for primary, secondary and high school, story books, with puzzles, encyclopedias, exercise books, specific topics books, foreign languages dictionaries, DEX or DOOM. The full lists as proposed by teachers are available at:  http://www.sustineducatia.ro/category/tip-de-resurse/carti/

We’re inviting you to join us in supporting education.

More information about the Program, ways to help and donate at www.sustineducatia.ro.

Children want to learn. Let’s help them!

This campaign is taking place as part of “Sustin Educatia” Program, together with Invictus Association, with the support of British Council and Centrul National al Dansului. Download the full press release here.

I Support Education is a program aimed entirely at educators, teachers and professors in public schools in Romania, who wish to offer children a better teaching environment, by obtaining private funding. At the same time, the program is addressing all people, organisations and institutions in Romania that can help and want to support the educational projects proposed by teachers, through donations by bank transfers, ePayment, postal office or directing 2% of taxes.

Quality education is possible and depends on each of us!

Eligible projects for I Support Education Program can be from any field (math, literature, physics, ecology, music, sports, etc.), from anywhere in the country, can address a wide variety of resources (books, lab equipment, boards, models, educational software, etc.), can address children with special needs and can comprise both formal and non formal educational activities.

The program is initiated by A.R.E.T. in partnership with Invictus Association and it brings together people and organisations from many fields that want to make education happen. We all want to make the future through youth education.

There’s lots to say about the program, but the most important thing is that it comes as a response to children that want to learn and to teachers that want to help them! All we have to do is go through their proposals, choose a project we want to support and donate as much as we can.

Together we can make education happen!

is made of one hundred.

The child has

a hundred languages

a hundred hands

a hundred thoughts

a hundred ways of thinking

of playing, of speaking.

A hundred always a hundred

ways of listening

of marveling of loving

a hundred joys

for singing and understanding

a hundred worlds

to discover

a hundred worlds

to invent

a hundred worlds

to dream.

The child has

a hundred languages

(and a hundred hundred more)

but they steal ninety-nine.

The school and the culture

separate the head from the body.

They tell the child:

to think without hands

to do without head

to listen and not to speak

to understand without joy

to love and to marvel

only at Easter and Christmas.

They tell the child:

to discover the world already there

and of the hundred

they steal ninety-nine.

They tell the child:

that work and play

reality and fantasy

science and imagination

sky and earth

reason and dream

are things

that do not belong together.

And thus they tell the child

that the hundred is not there.

The child says:

No way. The hundred is there.

(Loris Malaguzzi)

With their teachers, with the support of ApEAL, local authorities and companies that believed in them, the children participated in various ecological activities in their village: they cleaned many areas and the local park, they set up gardens in their schools’ yards, they planted over 1600 trees and started a big recycling project.

Their newest wish? A cultural centre! Together with the city hall, ApEAL ‘adopted’ the Cultural Centre and is trying to transform it into a resource centre for the community. What do they see when they look into the future? Movie screenings, cultural evenings, a library and reading room. All this is one step away from becoming a reality, with the help of each of us.

We decided to help them. Because they are fighting for a better world, we are fighting for them. Together with ApEAL, we want this cultural centre to become a cultural-educational centre to which children and young people to have access to, after school hours.

As such, for this cultural centre we still need:

• 1 video projector to organize movie screenings
• 2 tables and chairs
• books for the reading room
• 2 computers

And, because many of them come from socially aided families, we are helping ApEAL to organize clothes collection days for children, as well as for their families.

Patricia came to us to talk about books and of the important role they play in our lives. How they introduce us to fairytale worlds, how they prepare us for life and how they stay by our side when we grow up. Indeed, we all have the right to enjoy books, but we don’t all have access to them. About 50 children from placement centres want very much to read, they enjoy reading, but cannot do it. Because we can, I say let’s change this!

Let’s help Patricia set up small libraries for these young and less fortunate people. Let’s talk about mylibrary, your library and how we can help them have their library.

We’re sure you have at least one book you will not read anymore….or maybe more than one. Books that tell their age, dusty and yellow, but which don’t deserve to be thrown away or to be forgotten in an attick. Books that can be shared. So donate! There are many ways you can do it. The easiest would be to show up at Bookfest between June 9 and 13, to meet Patricia and the young people helping her in this project.

This project is developed together with the Student Association “Philos”, General Directorate for Social Services and Child Protection for the 3rd District of Bucharest and Anotimpul 5, with the support of Bookfest.

Of course,if you wish to see what else we have been doing at ONG Fest, please visit our Wish Tree made of recycled paper and the Eschimos.

The play “On thin ice” is an ARET project and it will be interpreted by high school students and young volunteers between the ages of 15 and 24. We are all very excited about promoting social and environmental responsibility.

This event was organised together with TeenMedia and “Gheorghe Lazar” National College of Bucharest.

This play is a combination of ecological education and art, in an attempt to cross barriers and identify new communication channels with the youth, and to inspire citizenship through the participative methods of theatre.

The story of the play concerns the causes and effects of climate change, the impact we have on the environment every day and our responsibility to change things.

Shortly after the premiere at the festival, the team of actors will perform a tour to present the play in schools and highschools, during educational events such as summer schools organised by partners of ARET, locally or in the surrounding areas.

The objective of the Association is to communicate specific messages concerning the protection of the environment and to develop young actors’ abilities to approach a current issue in a creative manner.

You are invited at the premiere to witness the result of our efforts.

More information on www.ceasulcuc.ro and www.aret.ro

A.R.E.T. reprezents a group of young people gathered around an idea: a better and cleaner world through education. We believe education is key to youth involvement and that it depends on each of us!