Poll: Romanians have a good opinion about immigrants, but authorities fail to offer access to education for foreigners

One in three Romanians has a good and very good opinion about immigrants, while 49 percent of Romanians had a ‘neither good, nor bad’ opinion, according to a recent barometer on how immigrants integrate in Romania. The poll showed 7 percent of Romanians have a bad opinion about immigrants. Unless it involves their jobs, Romanians are hospitable with foreigners, the barometer by the Foundation for an Open Society found. A group of 43 percent of respondents believe foreigners should be able to settle down in Romania, and an almost equal group, 44 percent, would like to have some control in place, and allow only certain categories of foreigners to settle down. Six percent of Romanians would like to forbid foreigners to settle down in Romania. The same study shows Romania’s Education Ministry does not have data on how many foreign students are enrolled in the country’s education system. Data is centralized locally, on a county level, and local education inspectorates fail to send over data. The study found that authorities do a bad job managing access to education for foreigners in Romania. Foreign children without identification documents can sign up for Romanian school, but they cannot take exams such as the Baccalaureate. For adults without identification papers, they can only join a parallel education program called “A doua sansa/The second chance”. Foreigners are poorly informed about Romanian language courses, and those who teach these classes are Romanian language teachers, not foreign language teachers. The poll was carried out on 1,500 respondents. editor@romania-insider.com