Alexander Strunga PhD, University of Craiova
The University of Craiova is one of the largest educational and research institutions from Ro- mania. The University intends to build partnerships between the institutions that are actively in- volved in working with seniors and geragogy and tries to address seniors’ needs by developing educational programs and networks in the local (and national) community. The Academic Day is a part of the vast educational project, with the cooperation of the NGO Window Romania and other interested parties and stakeholders. The leaders of the University are also very in- terested to involve seniors in the educational activities, thus building bridges between people from different educational areas and interests.
Motto: “Seniors and University: together for successful education”
Participants involved in the project
Almost 50 seniors were involved in the project directly via collaboration with the NGO ‘Win- dow Romania’ Association from Craiova, Romania. However, in the Academic Day, also young participants took part, especially from the Department of Education Sciences at the University of Craiova. Included in the group of seniors were also several persons with disabilities. The group was well balanced also from the gender point of view.
General description of activities
The project consisted in organization, imple- mentation and evaluation of academic adult education (and more particularly seniors’ edu- cation) event called Academy Day that is regu- larly implemented by ZAWiW of Ulm Univer- sity in Germany. At the University of Craiova we organized a series of lectures held by the following professors: Corneliu Novac, Asso- ciate Professor of Psychology and Education Psychology; Remus Mogonea, Junior Profes- sor, Junior Professor of Education Psychology; Claudiu Bunăiaşu, Junior Professor of Educa- tion Sciences; Alexandru Strungă, Teaching As- sistant in Education Sciences. We established a very good communication with the NGO Window Romania’ and before the implementation of the program we organized together a round table to discuss our perspectives of the Academy Day and to make a survey in order to address seniors’ learning needs. This information was subsequently used for the design of the curriculum of the Academic Day.
Achievements
The most important achievement was that the seniors became aware of the necessity of learning at an older age. They were highly interested in the lectures’ topics and were also very active, i.e. putting questions and collaborating. They also requested to continue this program after the completion of the project which was our intention as well. Besides this exciting at- mosphere of learning and enjoyment, the universities’ leaders were also receptive: the Rector and Vice-Rector are becoming more and more interested in seniors’ education encouraging us to establish a European Institute of Geragogy. The number of seniors who wish to take part in the next Academic Day is also growing. Also highlighted in the lecture of Professor Novac was the European dimension of collaboration and communication between seniors living in the Danube Region and we think that it is important to use in the future events a topic with European (and regional) relevance.
Impact, visibility and follow up
In our opinion the event was a success, creat- ing a new tradition at the University of Craiova. The feedback from the seniors was very en- couraging and the professors were proud to make a contribution to this very important subject that was neglected in our country for so long – seniors’ education. We also plan to organize the event again in Craiova and also to develop this idea in other cities i.e. Timisoara (with the help of Cultural Association ‘C. Bran- cusi’) and in Drobeta Tunu – Severin (a univer- sity centre subordinated to the University of Craiova). Also, an article about DASUN will be soon published in the next number of our journal – Annals of the University of Craiova, Psychology and Pedagogy series. Finally, the posters we used provided our seniors with more information about the event. We also hope that our professors as well as the collaborators from the NGO will serve as multiplicators for the project DASUN, making the methods of the Academy Day known to the general public.
Conclusions
In our opinion, the Academic Day was a great success, because we accomplished all our ob- jectives, creating in the same time an efficient network for seniors education.
The majority of seniors (82% from our feedback mini-survey) suggested to continue the event next year, being very interested in the topics (74%). The Academic Day was the first event cen- tered on a partnership between UCV, NGO and seniors from the municipality of Craiova. We hope we will organize other events of this kind as well.
We received positive feedback from the TSTD’s Director, Professor Viorel Ionel and from a UCV’s vice-rector. Also the cooperating NGOs encouraged us to continue, offering their sup- port and experience.
The main obstacle was that there aren’t many NGOs specialized in seniors’ education in Craio- va and pensioners’ associations are not so well organized so it was sometimes difficult to get
in contact with the target group. But we’ve managed to overcome this with the help of ZA- WiW that has a lot of expertise in this field and with the support of Cultural Association
‘C. Brancusi’ from Timisoara.
As drawbacks we observed that some seniors were reserved, not being so much interested in workshops. This passive attitude reflects, in our opinion, a certain mentality of the Romanian seniors, that after you retire you can’t really continue your education or bring substantial con- tribution to the society. It is a mental representation that must be challenged!
Also the communist regime had a big influence in terms of seniors not being organized and without initiative for their own interests.
Recommendations
- Continue building up a seniors education network in Craiova with the help of the University, ACB and Window Associations.
- Workshop with UCV’s and other professors with the topic of didactical methods used in ger- agogy, especially on how to activate seniors, raise their interest in academic-based education
- Continuing searching for new ways of self-financing of the project and at the same time gathering additional funding and support from EU and Romanian local, regional and national authorities.
- Doing further research in the field and publishing the results.
- Lobbying for the creation of educational policies for seniors.
