Moldova  

Author(s)

• Claudia Piovano, Galileo Progetti Nonprofit Kft.
• Erika Kolumbán, Semmelweis University András Pető Faculty
• Yassine Youlal, Galileo Progetti Nonprofit Kft.

Abstract

While the Moldovan education system has made efforts to foster and measure academic skills, limited attention has been devoted to the students’ socio-emotional development.In the last few years, Moldova has introduced numerous metrics of internationally recognized cognitive abilities, aiming to enhance the educational system, resulting in positive outcomes with these implementations. Nevertheless, the same cannot be said in the field of social and emotional skills. Therefore, the Moldovan government is trying to make improvements in this area by introducing new curricula on “counselling and personal improvement” and “education for society” that are characterised by elements of the SEL (social and emotional learning). This work was started by the government, aiming to promote the civic engagement, entrepreneurship, and cultural awareness of the students.The results suggest that the before-mentioned tools can be implemented in Moldova with success. Among the main findings is the fact that various measures of socio-emotional skills are strongly correlated with maths grades and students' well-being.The Moldovan Socio-emotional Skills Assessment points to gender differences in the self-reported measures of socio-emotional skills across the skills distribution. The results showed that girls tend to self-report higher levels of socio-emotional skills in almost all the skills’ domains, which was also demonstrated in other countries. The only exception is the girl's capacity to ‘manage emotions', which they tend to self-report at a lower level compared to boys (World Bank, 2019).Moreover, the assessment of skills also demonstrates that school and family contexts affect students' levels of socio-emotional skills.It is also important to attribute a role of primary importance to policy makers and educators, they “may benefit from better understanding how fostering students' socio-emotional skills can help to improve their learning outcomes, labour market success, and well-being” (World Bank, 2019). Moreover, they should consider the introduction of a regular socio-emotional skills measurement at the system and school levels, “which can in turn provide valuable information for them to explore integrating SEL in policies and practices” (World Bank, 2019).

References

• WorldBank. 2019. Moldova Socioemotional Skills Assessment. Washington, DC. © World Bank. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/32514/Moldova- Socioemotional-Skills-Assessment.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

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CO-146-Moldova_Republic_of.pdf