In middle school (primary and secondary school), art education covers two fields: music and visual arts. From the first grade until the seventh grade, a pupil’s weekly schedule contains one class of music and musical education and one class of art education. In high school, art education is compulsory only for the vocational programmes. Future kindergarten educators, primary school teachers or pedagogues take classes of music, art and performing art during high school. The number of hours dedicated to these classes varies, but usually there are three hours. In recent years, these students have also been taking classes on art and music pedagogy.
The percentage of instructional hours dedicated to arts education in the first two years of secondary school (grades 5-6) is 14.01%.The most common art subjects are music, visual and fine arts. This is considered quite low in Romania as compared, for example, to the percentage of hours dedicated to science (22%) in relation to the total number of instructional hours.
In order to give a higher level of priority to arts education, the civil society organisations (NGOs) have developed several initiatives in the last years to support the link between education and culture and to fill in the gap between cultural and educational institutions. One of them is the initiative Supporting culture in education, which was financed between 2013 and 2017 by national and international funds.
Related to the governmental efforts to promote and stimulate artistic and creative capacities of young people, the Ministry of Education has initiated a special programme (Alternative School) which encourages the development of competences and skills related to arts and culture among children from primary school to high school. The programme lasts five consecutive days during the school year and it is run on a schedule that remains the decision of each education institution (see chapter 6.1).
In Romania, ICT (Information and Communications Technology) is part of the education curriculum, inclusively in schools with an artistic specialisation. According to the Order of the Minister of Education, Youth and Sports no. 5399/17.10.2006, ICT is part of the curriculum in the art high schools (architecture, environmental art and design). Moreover, according to the Order of the Minister of Education, Youth and Sports no. 4856/2009 regarding the approval of the educational framework plans for grades 9th-12th, vocational branch, artistic profile, specialisation conservation-restoration of cultural goods, full time courses, ICT is part of these high schools’ educational plan.
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