Students’ Perspective on Romanian Higher Education Quality: A Statistical Approach
Abstract A recent survey (made by Universitas 21), which took into account 50 countries worldwide, has ranked Romania 42nd in the world, in a ranking of the best university systems, managing to exceed only 3 countries from the European Union. By comparing with previous years, the rank has slightly lowered. The present study attempts to conduct an overview on the state of the higher education national system with the purpose of making improvements to it. Firstly, the paper consists of presenting the general data of the context in which the Romanian higher education is situated. The SWOT analysis conducted in various universities from Romania, are summarized, following with the broad shaping of the elements that define the quality of higher education. Secondly, the study aims to conduct a statistical survey among Romanian students for the assessment of general trends in their opinion upon the discussed topic.As the actual beneficiaries of the services offered by the Romanian universities, the students have a significant importance and thus, based on the answers, we prepare from their perspective a SWOT analysis of the Romanian higher education quality.The results establish in an easy and precise manner the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats facing the educational system, after which measures can be taken in order to improve, or better said, to optimize the processes of universities in the country.
Aspects of professional motivation during the first year of higher education.
The research study aims at investigating the categories of basic needs that underlie the professional orientation of students enrolled in the first year of study. The research was performed on a sample of 75 students attending the 1st year of a faculty having an agricultural line of studies. From the methodological perspective, the research instrument used in this study was the enquiry based on a questionnaire including 35 items. The results were divided into five categories of basic needs: physiological, security, belonging, social, esteem and statute, as well as self-realization needs. The conclusions have shown that when choosing their profession students take into consideration preponderantly the needs for self-realization and also the needs for esteem and statute. The study offers openings for further research regarding career counselling and motivation for professional activities.
Policy, politics, and social control: A systemic functional linguistic analysis of EU employment policy
In this article, I argue that EU employment policy is, in Bernstein's sense, a form of pedagogic discourse, in which regulation or social control projects instruction. In terms of social control, policy functions to persuade others to do things. In terms of instruction, policy also transmits a neoliberal view of reality. Furthermore, through its regulative and instructional functions, policy depoliticizes by restricting the kinds of social actors that may participate in employment policy making and by restricting alternative construals of employment. For this article, I examine how language functions to realize the employment policy genre. More specifically, I use the resources of genre and register theory of systemic functional linguistics, in order to demonstrate how EU employment policy functions to control and instruct.