Governmental Structure

Governmental Structure of Higher Education

The administrative responsibility for running education belongs to the Ministry of Education. The Ministry of Education develops the strategy and promotes state policy in education. The Ministry of Education through its divisions coordinates the activity in the field of education at all levels: secondary schools, vocational education and training, higher education and post-university education. The Ministry also supervises as well the training provided by other ministries within the specialized sectors. The Ministry also has the right to control if the educational and evaluation legislation is followed up. To fulfill its tasks the Ministry can organize certain Commissions or Councils with the involvement of experts.
The main responsibilities of the Ministry of Education are as follows:

1. to elaborate the strategy and to promote state policy in education, to participate at the elaboration and promotion of state policy in the problems related to children and the youth;
2. to promote state linguistic policy, to exercise control upon the fulfillment of legislation concerning functioning of spoken languages on the territory of Moldova;
3. to develop the strategy for institutional development programs;
4. to elaborate educational standards and define the evaluation mechanism, to organize and coordinate the activity for curriculum and program development;
5. to establish together with other ministries and departments and public authorities the educational network and types of educational institutions;
6. to participate at the elaboration of admission plans and List of specialization;
7. to evaluate and accredit educational institutions and the didactic staff and as well to organize opportunities for the teaching staff training and retraining as well;
8. to coordinate the financial activity of the educational institutions;
9. to conclude Cooperation Agreements related to education and science with ministries and organizations from abroad;
10. etc.

Other ministries develop the main directions for specialized education (medicine, agriculture), organize the training for sector specialists and provide financing for the educational institutions subordinate to them.

Council of the Ministry of Education chaired by the Minister is the national administrative and consulting body. The members of the Council are appointed by the Government. HEIs are governed by the Senate (chaired by the Rector), the Bureau of the Senate (composed by the Rector, vice-Rectors and scientific secretary), the Faculty Council (chaired by the Dean).

The Ministry of Education is also responsible for issuing the authorization (license) that gives the educational institutions the right to offer educational services to the community. In case the educational institutions infringe the terms of functioning specified under the issued license the Ministry of Education has the right to withdraw the license.

In order to make the educational system more effective and to create a market of educational services the national system for academic evaluation and accreditation of educational institutions has been developed. The National Council for Academic Evaluation and Accreditation of Educational Institutions subordinated to the Government of Moldova is the main board responsible for quality assessment. Its goal is to promote State policy in the field of academic evaluation and accreditation, to define their capacities for the qualitative fulfillment of the objectives of the national educational system.

An educational institution can be subjected to the procedure of evaluating the quality of services provided two years have passed since the graduation date of the first group of graduates.

The main functions of the National Council are:

1. the development and implementation of the state policy and strategy in the field of academic evaluation and accreditation of educational institutions;
2. evaluation and accreditation of educational institutions under any type of property and departmental subordination, functioning in accordance with the national standards;
3. setting up the national standards concerning self-evaluation reference indicators for various levels of education, and reporting; development of academic evaluation criteria and of indicators for educational institutions;
4. setting up Specialized Commissions for academic evaluation and accreditation of educational institutions liable for accreditation; organization of academic evaluation and accreditation of educational institutions;
5. decision making concerning accreditation or non-accreditation of educational institutions and submitting the decisions to the Government for approval;
6. harmonization of the national system of evaluation and accreditation with the international standards; co-operation with accreditation organizations from abroad.

The evaluation and accreditation is performed once in 5 years at two levels: internal evaluation finalized with a report presented to the National Council and external evaluation performed by Specialized Commissions. Based on the presentation of the Specialized Commission, the National Council adopts a decision regarding accreditation or non-accreditation of the educational institution and presents the decision to the Government for approval of that decision.