Education minister Daniel David announced his resignation on Monday, December 22, one year after taking office. Marilen Pirtea, the rector of West University in Timișoara, has been proposed to take over the education minister job, according to reports by Edupedu.ro.

In a post on his blog, Daniel David said he never aimed for a career in politics and only accepted the minister job temporarily “to help the country and our education and research system in the crisis situations they undergone.” The decision to withdraw is final, he said.

He further explained that he was ready to leave the post as early as June 2025 and return to Cluj-Napoca, where he was the rector of Babeș-Bolyai University (UBB). 

“The need to help during the fiscal crisis, when the country was at risk of default, with a negative impact on our education and research system,” determined him to stay on, temporarily, for a second mandate, he said.

Daniel David served two mandates as education minister: first in the government led by Marcel Ciolacu, between December 23, 2024, and June 23, 2025, and a second one in the government of Ilie Bolojan, beginning June 23 of this year.

The decision to withdraw is a professional one, because psychology is the vocation through which he can offer “long-term, added value” to the country, he also said.

David noted among his achievements as minister that the education budget will be higher in 2026 than in the previous year, both in nominal terms and as a percentage of GDP. He also mentioned the measures taken to align with EU/OECD practices, such as those concerning the status of pupils and students, and teaching and research staff, as well as measures related to curriculum and assessment.

Daniel David has led UBB since 2020. In 2024, he obtained a second mandate as rector, but suspended himself from the post to take over as education minister. He is a professor of clinical cognitive sciences at UBB, where he earned his PhD in Psychology in 1999. He later completed postdoctoral studies at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. He is also president of the Romanian College of Psychologists.

simona@romania-insider.com

(Photo source: Inquam Photos/George Calin)