After a break of almost two years, a meeting of the working groups on education took place
The working groups on education from Chișinău and Tiraspol met on December 6, 2024 after a break of almost two years in an online meeting, organized with the technical support of the OSCE Mission to the Republic of Moldova.
The delegation from Chișinău was led by the Secretary of State at the Ministry of Education and Research, Mrs. Valentina Olaru, coordinator of the working group.
The directors of the eight Romanian-language educational institutions in the Transnistrian region also attended the meeting.
During the dialogue, as a matter of priority, the subject of providing own premises was raised, especially for the "Evrika" Theoretical Lyceum in Râbnița and the "Stefan cel Mare şi Sfânt" Theoretical Lyceum in Grigoriopol, temporarily located in Doroțcaia village. Experts from Chișinău mentioned that although point 7 of the 25.11.2017 Protocol Decision on schools stipulates that Chișinău and Tiraspol will continue the dialogue in order to improve the situation of schools teaching in Romanian in the Transnistrian region, which implies discussing the issue of returning the headquarters or identifying others which would be suitable for the educational process, absolutely no openness was expressed by the structures in the region in this regard.
Similarly, experts from Chișinău drew attention to the fact that Tiraspol's discriminatory and unilateral measures to increase tariffs for communal services for all schools teaching in Romanian in the region, starting January 1, 2024, are in direct contradiction with the provisions of point 1 of the Protocol Decision and called for its observance without politicization.
It is worth mentioning that the payments for all utilities for schools teaching in Romanian for 2024 compared to 2023 increased on average by 82%, including for natural gas consumption by 501%, for electricity by 125%. Taking into account that the tariff increase mainly affected energy resources, by the end of 2024, the specified figures will be even higher.
