Ion Ceban, Mayor of Chisinau and leader of the National Alternative Movement, said that “only members of the PAS party voted today in Parliament to bring schools under the authority of the Ministry of Education and for the so-called ‘RESTART’ reform. Schools across the country will no longer be managed by Local Public Administrations, but by the Ministry, that is, by the government,” TRIBUNA reports.

“In Chisinau, Balti, and the Autonomous Territorial Unit of Gagauzia, this will take effect starting in 2028 — that is what they voted for. Even though, in Chisinau, more than 400 teachers, practically delegates from every school in the capital, voted against this decision.

In addition to the fact that the government intends to take over the schools in Chisinau, it will also reach into the budget of Chisinau residents to take around 400 million lei annually. This means that we, together with you, dear residents of Chisinau, will have to implement fewer projects for the city because they do not have enough money in the state budget to cope.

The government’s decision to take over schools at the central level is a strictly political one, aimed at controlling people within educational institutions and appointing people to positions in accordance with their interests.

This is not about increasing teachers’ salaries, reducing bureaucracy, or investing in educational institutions, the quality of education, or children’s comfort.

At the same time, they themselves acknowledge that Chisinau has the best educational institutions, with the best conditions and services,” the mayor said.

The mayor stated that “in Chisinau, the number of children coming to study in the capital increases every year because people are leaving the villages, where PAS has closed another 72 schools as of September 1, and because teachers are leaving the profession and even the country due to extremely low salaries — salaries that PAS itself promised to increase but did nothing about.”

“NOT PAS, but we, the Chisinau City Hall, have invested enormously in educational institutions in the capital and its suburbs in recent years. Total allocations have increased from 2 billion lei to 6 billion lei, consolidated budget including TDS — an enormous and unprecedented figure for the country.

Investments have been made in the construction of new institutions, expansions, the creation of more than 8,000 new places in schools and kindergartens, renovations, energy-efficiency improvements and major repairs, unique services for children, after-school activities such as extended-day programmes, extracurricular programmes, free transportation for children up to the fourth grade, annual support for around 8,000 children from low-income families, and much more.

YOU, PAS, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE DURING ALL SIX YEARS IN GOVERNMENT? At least show us one school you have built as a model. Just as you have done nothing so far, you will do nothing in the future.

We are waiting to see PAS’s results in the country’s schools. After deciding to take schools under government management, you must justify this political power grab, driven by personal interests,” Ion Ceban added.