Center Education 2000+ has been developing projects in more than 70% of the Romanian counties, as well as international projects implemented in partnership with organizations from Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland, Greece, Italy, Norway, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal. At national level, the Center has developed programs in more than 230 educational institutions, has trained about 5 800 teachers and trainers and benefited tens of thousands of students.
The target groups of the programs developed by Center Education 2000+ have been identified based on their social and educational needs. As a rule, the programs aimed at overcoming existing pitfalls of the educational system. Our Center has been continuously developing its activity based on a "grass-root" credo with all basic educational units (schools, high-schools), students and teachers in their concrete working setting.
The educational and institutional philosophy of the Center has been consolidated around our "admiral" program, designed and implemented in the Romanian education system from 1999 to 2000, namely Education 2000+. This program was built on a macro system objective, namely to trigger the reform of the Romanian education system by drafting "grass root" change implementation models and patterns, which, in their turn, can be replicated later on nationwide. Our "grass root" philosophy has contributed to the development of a new education reform "culture" in Romania.
Other "grass root" success stories that generated important experiences in improving the educational policy design were the programs implemented in disadvantaged or Roma communities: Second Chance, Improving Education in disadvantaged Areas - Pilot Models for pre-vocational Learning, Improving Education for Roma Children. Focus on Romania. The newest and most active project in this respect - Equal Chances for Roma Children through School Development Programs and Parent Involvement - is a current program that will be concluded in 2004.
The same "grass root" category includes projects designed for high-school students and aiming at their dynamic social inclusion upon graduation. The methodology applied in this case consists of counseling, guidance, development of abilities and skills required on a free market and developing local partnerships in order to stimulate employment on the labor market. The most representative projects in this category are: Career Dream, Human Resources Development in General High-Schools in Romania for Adjusting the Educational Offer to the Labour Market Needs, Open Guidance and Advisory Services (OGAS) and Development and Implementation of a regional Mechanism for encouraging Employment in the V-th Western Region.
The system as such has also been taken into account. Upon a request formulated by the Ministry of Education, Research and Youth we run two impact studies on the educational reform. Both impact studies, Change and Continuity in the compulsory Education Curriculum and Impact Study on the Rural Education Development, facilitated an outstanding development of reflection on educational policies.
Another category of projects is represented by those aiming at inducing desirable values in the education system, based on new teaching approaches. These projects are generally designed for teachers and the most representatives are: Fostering History and Citizenship Education in Romania and Should we be afraid of our Neighbors - the Majority and Minorities in History Textbooks from Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, developed within the Confidence Building Measures of the Council of Europe.
The development and implementation length of the Center Education 2000+ programs varies from one to three years, according to their degree of complexity and the nature of their aims.
