Students at Romania’s prestigious Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest say they have a common goal. They say that after graduation next year, they’re hoping to find jobs in the subjects they’ve spent so many years learning.
“I am expecting to work in a bank or maybe in insurance. I am currently doing an internship in insurance, and it seems pretty nice,” says 21-year-old Bogdan Crismic, who will graduate next year.
Matching education with employment is one of several issues examined in the Europe 2020 Romania Report.
The report says that while Romania has overcome significant challenges on its path to EU membership, the country’s economy is under pressure, partly due to a lack of reforms in education and employment.
“The World Bank study focused on the gap between the education and the labor market,” says Viorel Dobrescu of Romania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is working to implement some of the report’s suggestions.
“There is a gap between these two. The labor market is asking for certain, let’s say, competencies, and education has provided other types of competencies, and there is a mismatch,” he says.