30 years, 30+ stories: Moldova, a long road to Europe

Moldova is an Eastern European country of 2.5 million people, bordered by two large countries – Romania and Ukraine – which have influenced its dynamic society and culture. Situated between forests, rocky hills and vineyards, its territory has no outlet to the sea.   

This geography results in a high proportion of the population living in rural areas (57% in 2022 according to the World Bank). Most of the 27% of young people who are not in employment, education or training (NEETs), particularly women, live outside towns and cities, which highlights the low economic potential of rural areas. This lack of opportunities is due to the pull of the capital, Chișinău, where more than a fifth of the country's population lives, but also to emigration to the European Union and other countries. 

A successful initiative to address these major challenges in an active policy of human resources and entrepreneurship in rural areas is the PARE 1+1 [Programme for Attracting Remittances in the Economy]. This programme mobilises the resources of migrants working abroad to promote active entrepreneurship in the area, doubling the funds for the migrants themselves or their relatives through microcredit. 

The ETF's multi-sectoral support 

The country is reforming its active labour market policies, improving outreach to marginalised groups and in rural areas, but all this work starts with reforming and improving education systems and their link to the labour market. This is an area where the ETF's expertise has been useful for the national authorities in recent decades.  

"We appreciate the cooperation with the ETF regarding the digitalisation process of education, the exchange of experiences between the vocational education and training (VET) institutions and EU countries, the sharing of best practices according to the networking models of ENE [ETF Network for Excellence], EAfA [European Alliance for Apprenticeships] and others," says Silviu Gîncu, Head of the Directorate for Policy in VET at the Ministry of Education and Research.

"We are honoured to be working with the ETF, especially because of the openness and opportunities to collaborate in the development and modernisation of VET." 

One reform that has yielded very good results is the creation and development of centres of vocational excellence, which the ETF has supported over the years and continues to support:

"Today we have 13 centres of excellence in Moldova, which have become responsible for each economic sector," says Filippo Del Ninno, ETF Human Capital Development Expert and Country Liaison for Moldova. 

"The network of VET institutions is an important pillar of the VET system. From this point of view, the strengthening of the network of VET institutions and the growth of centres of excellence is one of the fundamental reforms that will make it possible to develop new ways of improving the quality of VET," adds Gîncu. 

In addition to capacity building activities, including support for the development of a national qualifications framework, a key step in the labour market system was the establishment of the Labour Market Observatory within the Moldovan Employment Agency (ANOFM). Other initiatives on the demand side include the sectoral committees, institutions in which social partners, including employers, are represented to coordinate their actions with the ministry.

This is an initiative that needs to be strengthened, but it is the beginning of an important path," Del Ninno continues. 

Digital education has also been the focus of the ETF's support to the country. This started with the pilot implementation of the SELFIE tool in the national VET sector in 2020, allowing an important round of self-assessment by national VET centres on their digital readiness. Based on these results, in the following years the methodology of the ETF Digital Education Reform Framework has informed a series of policy advice activities for the Moldovan Ministry of Education, culminating in a report mapping the existing and possible developments in the country. 

“These policy analysis activities were able to provide an unprecedented insight on the areas where more work is needed, based on the voice of the stakeholders themselves," says Fabio Nascimbeni, ETF Human Capital Development Expert. "Data were collected through a comprehensive survey of the entire national vocational education and training system, complemented by a series of interviews with key stakeholders in the education system.”

The results of this work were presented to the main VET stakeholders during a workshop in February 2024, organised in cooperation with the Austrian Development Agency and the Swiss Agency for Cooperation and Development. 

A path of transformation with an eye on Europe 

Over the past four years, the Moldovan government, led by the pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity, has had to set out a reform agenda and build strong ties with the European Union.  

"When I returned to Moldova last January after more than 10 years, I found a transformed country. The Moldovan people are very close to the EU, and I would not be surprised to see an acceleration of integration with the EU," says Siria Taurelli, ETF Senior Human Capital Development Expert and Country Liaison for Moldova between 2008 and 2012. "I was at an event in a VET school, and it was emotional to hear students say that they want to be Europeans because Europe is about diversity, tolerance for different opinions and lifestyles, and freedom of expression.” 

The Moldovan President, Maia Sandu, has long been the key decision-taker in education, hence the ETF's main partner in the country.

“When Maia Sandu became Minister of Education [between 2012 and 2015], I remember very well her attention to the whole of education, starting with early child development, which was a new approach at the time, and her efforts to reform school management, including the preparation and selection of school leaders and teachers,” continues Taurelli. “As Prime Minister, and now as President of the country, she has never stopped emphasising the role of education in individual and societal development, and the importance of a diffused culture of learning”. 

As in any country, "all elements of the reforms need to be assessed and analysed in a general context so that they are viable and produce the expected results," says Gîncu. 

So even when reforms are well implemented, there is always room for improvement.

"For example, the centres of excellence still need support in diversifying vocational training and ensuring social dialogue with the labour market,” continues Gîncu. 

The Education Strategy 2030, adopted by the Moldovan government, sets out the priorities for future reforms in education and the labour market. Concerning the vocational training sector:

"These are the pillars: the quality assurance of VET educational programmes, the relevance of studies from the perspective of anticipating the labour market needs, and ensuring a professional training system able to react quickly and efficiently to the needs of the market economy," concludes Gîncu. 

Anna Gherganova, Head of the Ministry of Labour’s Department for Employment, Labour Migration Development and Social Protection, and European Year of Skills national coordinator, outlined in a recent article the requirements for her country's accession to the EU:

“If we want to access the EU, we need a more competitive labour force [...] through improvement of our education system in general and lifelong learning.”

 The ETF will support Moldova in these areas for as long as it takes.