As many as 160 Moldovan schools to be endowed with equipment for physics, chemistry, biology laboratories

Chisinau, 31 January /MOLDPRES/ - As many as 160 schools of Moldova will be endowed with equipment for laboratories of physics, chemistry and biology. The action takes place under the Moldova Education Reform Project (PRIM), financially backed by the World Bank (WB) and implemented by the Education, Culture and Research Ministry (MECC).        

The modernization of the school laboratories, according to MECC decision-makers, is one of the activities meant to improve the conditions of learning in the Moldovan schools and to contribute to the promotion of the efficient reforms in the education sector.

The education institutions due to benefit from equipment for laboratories were selected following a contest in which 270 schools participated from all Moldova’s districts. “The 160 schools were selected based on criteria of access and quality of education, accepted by the World Bank. The education institutions placed in the settlements with the demographic prospect and which provide a friendly environment to children represented priority. The schools must have a number of not less than 400 children and specialized classrooms for physics, chemistry and biology. The minimal standards for endowing the school classrooms were approved by MECC in February 2019,” the state secretary at the competent ministry, Natalia Griu, has said.    

„Physics, chemistry and biology are school disciplines with experimental specific feature. Therefore, it is quite important that, at the classes of physics, chemistry and biology, pupils, guided by teachers, systematically carry out practical and laboratory works, which will essentially contribute to the knowledge of the phenomena studied, will motivate them to understand the importance for life of the skills created while studying the sciences. Unfortunately, the equipment from schools is, to a great extent, obsolete or non-functional, does not meet the current standards, or it necessary to renew the education technologies and besides the classical ones, we should endow the laboratories from schools with modern technologies,” a chief consultant at MECC’s general education directorate, Victor Paginu, said.    

Within the project, about 500 teachers of physics, chemistry and biology from those 160 schools are to be trained. The Moldova Education Reform is implemented on the period 2013-2022, with a budget of 50 million dollars, provided as preferential loan by the World Bank.