Press review – January 5, 2021

The Ministry of Education wants "the opening of schools as quickly as possible, depending on the epidemiological situation, if possible even on February 8", with the start of the second semester, the Minister of Education, Sorin Cîmpeanu, told HotNews.ro on Monday, stating that in the first stage kindergarten students, primary education students and those who have national exams could physically return to school. He said that one of the criteria will be the vaccination campaign, but he did not want to answer if the reopening of schools will be conditional on the vaccination of the staff in the educational institutions. Cîmpeanu also stated for HotNews.ro that a decision related to the reopening of schools will be taken after mid-January.

The National Council of Students asked the Ministry of Education on Monday to decentralize the decision regarding the opening of schools, so that educational units can be reopened in localities where the infection rate is below 3 per thousand inhabitants, especially as the national exams are approaching.

The National Council of Students officially requests the Ministry of Education to decentralize the decision regarding the opening of schools, depending on the rate of incidence of COVID-19 at the local level. The request comes in the context in which the new Government has not clearly announced until now how the students will learn once the winter vacation ends.

The students warn that 'it is absolutely imperative to implement a feasible remedial learning strategy, to guarantee that the gaps that many students have accumulated at the beginning of the pandemic and during the online learning period of this school year will not become acute, becoming impossible to covered. At the same time, we request the start of discussions regarding the organization of national exams, in order to have several scenarios prepared, so that they can be carried out safely'.

We remind you that the Minister of Education, Sorin Cîmpeanu, stated on Știrile Pro TV that "institutionally" the ministry "wants the opening of schools as soon as possible", but when asked by the reporter if on January 11 the students will return to the banks, Cîmpeanu indirectly announced that they would not .

The full statement of the National Council of Students:

The National Council of Students requests the decentralization of the decision regarding the opening
schools

On January 11, the winter vacation will end, and students will return to school online, according to the announcements made by the Ministry of Education. Ever since the suspension of classes in November, the National Council of Students has been in permanent contact with students throughout the country. Most of our peers have told us that online school is tedious, inefficient, and completely unsustainable in the long run.

Taking into account the fact that we are rapidly approaching the national exams, the second semester of this school year and that many localities in the country are below the index of 3 cases/thousand inhabitants, we request the Ministry of Education to once again decentralize the decision regarding the reopening of the education, depending on the incidence rate at the local level, ensuring, at the same time, the sanitary materials necessary for the safe conduct of the courses.

Furthermore, it is absolutely imperative that a feasible remedial learning strategy is implemented to ensure that the gaps that many students accumulated at the beginning of the pandemic and during the online learning period of this school year will not become acute and impossible to cover . At the same time, we request the start of discussions on the organization of national exams, in order to have several scenarios prepared so that they can be conducted safely.

"With the start of 2021, it is important not to forget that education is currently in a critical moment, and the Ministry of Education must
to respond quickly to the needs of the education system: attendance at courses in the format
physically, where the epidemiological situation allows, and the realization of a recovery plan
of the subject for students who could not participate in the online courses, due to the lack
a device to the internet. Otherwise, the long-term results will be disastrous!
The increasing rate of functional illiteracy is knocking at our door. Education is no joke!
We request the Ministry of Education to start the dialogue process with the social partners,
to find the best solutions for resuming classes," said Rareș Voicu,
the president of the National Council of Students.'

Almost 500.000 students in Romania follow a TikTok account in which teachers are blamed, pointed at and positioned as if they were opponents of the students. It is happening on the "proful online" account, managed by Alexandru Cumpănaşu, former independent candidate in the presidential elections. While parents are shocked by the extremely harsh content to which their children have access, the posts on TikTok, often on manele rhythms, have become the subject of discussion in the chancelleries.

Almost 500.000 children and young people learn from TikTok, from the "online pro", how they should behave in lessons that have been going on for months on the Internet.

What teachers and students say

The teachers are outraged by the hundreds of videos in which Alexandru Cumpanaşu encourages children's hatred of teachers and tries to explain this phenomenon.

"It is a place of repression, a place where they express their dissatisfaction, but I think it would be very good if they were expressed in an institutional framework. It also bothers the way things are said. The charges brought there in particular may be true, but they certainly cannot be generalized. The enormous number of followers of these videos shows us that the students feel a lack of real communication with the teaching staff", he admits Ioana Neacșu, deputy director at the "Grigore Moisil" National College.

reporter: Could it constitute a subject in a leadership lesson or is it taboo, in the idea that at least the students who have not found out about such an account should not continue to find out?

"An open, head-on approach is best. We will reflect and see if it is a suitable measure", says Ioana Neacșu.

For his part, Marcel Bartic, a history teacher, is of the opinion that parents should show a little more attention to the needs of their children, but teachers should also be more careful. "As long as some of them see this teaching job as just a job where you go to 8:00 and leave at 12:00, you can't claim to be a role model for those kids. There is no way to awaken in the child's soul an emotion that somehow brings you closer to him", says Marcel Bartic.

Meanwhile, parents are worried about not being able to control their children's internet activity.

"We emphasize this tripartite relationship between parent, student and teacher to be a constant and continuous dialogue. It is important that those who feel harmed by such information take measures and challenge that aspect or not," says Gabriel Chicioreanu, from the National Federation of Parents' Associations.

The police and the Prosecutor's Office of the 4th District Court are investigating the videos posted by Alexandru Cumpanaşu on the TikTok network. The police reported themselves and are investigating whether the discussions with minors held by the former candidate in the presidential elections do not somehow fall within the scope of the Criminal Code.

Almost 500.000 students in Romania follow a TikTok account in which teachers are blamed, pointed at and positioned as if they were opponents of the students, reports Digi24.ro. It is happening on the "proful online" account, managed by Alexandru Cumpănaşu, former independent candidate in the presidential elections. While parents are shocked by the extremely harsh content to which their children have access, the posts on TikTok, often on manele rhythms, have become the subject of discussion in the chancelleries. Now, on the one hand, the Police are checking whether Alexandru Cumpănaşu's discussions can fall under the category of inciting hatred towards teachers, and on the other hand, there are other discussions, with a sexual tone, that could border on the corruption of minors. Alexandru Cumpănaşu had several discussions with sexual allusions on the TikTok platform, according to Aktual24. Thus, he said to a minor: "you have beautiful hair, you are quite a developed girl", and in other discussions he talked about his natural "endowments", and with another minor he discussed potency.

In the 72 universities in Romania, there are 619 tenured professors, according to the data published by the Ministry of Education, data valid for the current academic year, 2020-2021. In addition to these, there are also 2.468 other professors, lecturers, lecturers and assistants who teach in universities as associate teaching staff.

There are 481 tenured university professors over the age of 65 in Romanian universities. There are also 105 people over 65 years old with the position of lecturer among the full-time teaching staff and 33 university lecturers.

more of them tenured university professors who have passed retirement age are at the "Carol Davila" University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Bucharest. There are 62 medicine/pharmacy professors.

In second place is the Technical University of Bucharest with 43 tenured professors aged over 65 and the Transilvania University in Brașov, which also has 43 senior tenured professors, along with 17 associate professors and four lecturers.

The next university in terms of the number of university professor positions occupied by people who are at least 65 years old (27) is the Academy of Economic Studies (ASE) from Bucharest. Also, at the Polytechnic University of Timișoara there are 24 tenured professors over retirement age and at the National School of Political and Administrative Studies in Bucharest there are 20.

At the "Ion Mincu" University of Architecture and Urbanism in Bucharest there are 14 such tenured professors, and at the "Gh. Asachi" from Iasi -11. At the rest of the state universities, there are at most 10 university professors over 65 years old.

It should be noted that the University of Bucharest has only 5 holders over 65 years of age, but it has 655 professors, lecturers, lecturers and assistants employed as associated teaching staff, far from the Politehnica University of Bucharest (189) or the Technical University of Cluj- Napoca (159).

The researchers succeeded in making the first teleportation cuantic long distance. It is a first in science and a major achievement for the IT field. The US Department of Energy's Fermilab team, along with NASA and University of Calgary researchers, badsit to teleport quantum bits of photons along 44 kilometers of fiber. The new discovery is important for the future of the internet, being a new step towards the quantum internet. Physicist Cristian Presură explained to Digi24 what this achievement means and how soon it could be put into practice.

"This is, of course, a step forward, because we have quantum computers in the world today, which are capable of doing amazing things, and these quantum computers should talk to each other in the future, and for that we need the quantum internet , to get the quantum data from one side to the other, so that the quantum computers all work in unison. This is what we are talking about, about the quantum internet, and about a network, which is under construction near Chicago, and which will be the first quantum internet on this planet", explained Cristian Presură.

"First and foremost, it's important to build it, because we have quantum computers, and those quantum computers have to work together, because they become much more powerful," the physicist pointed out.

"If we have more quantum computers sharing the data, they can build and do much better things, analyze, for example, much better research situations, build much better drugs, research more theoretical things, create new materials", exemplified Ciprian Presură.

How the quantum internet works

"It means a long research, step by step, because the classical information, which is transmitted now, is transmitted by means of lasers and optical fibers.

Quantum information must be transmitted through light particles, not light rays, and this light particle is called a photon.

This makes it possible, on the one hand, to use the existing infrastructure, because we can use the optical fibers we had before, only we need the hardware: this time we have to send photon by photon, and none of them must be lost and especially not to be readable. The information from the first quantum computer must be encoded in these photons, after which these photons are sent through the optical fiber one by one, one by one, the information reaches the second detection system, is decoded and put into the second quantum computer", Cristian showed Pressure.

When will we have quantum internet?

And in terms of speed, at the present time, we are in Mr. Valea Prahova's situation, says the physicist. "Currently, this achievement in Chicago, which is extraordinary for today, this quantum mini-internet has managed to transmit data at a frequency of a few hertz, that is, only a few qubits per second, one at a time, as in the Valley Prahova only managed to escape one car at a time and move on.

It will be decades before these discoveries will be widely used. The same thing happened with the classic computer. It appeared for the first time in the 60s, it was as big as a closet and cost millions of euros (in today's money - n.r.). For that computer to be miniaturized in such a way that each of us has it on the table took almost 40 years, and then it took me another 10 years to have the classic Internet that we know. So, all in all, we are talking about about 50 years", concluded physicist Cristian Presură.