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Women
in Public Functions in Romania: Challenge or Necessity?
Prepared by the Group for European Integration, Romania
The Training Course “Women in public functions in Romania: challenge or
necessity?” was developed by the Group for European Integration based on the
identified needs in the envisaged field: women holding public positions. Taking
into consideration the interest shown by the general public and especially by
women towards the thematic of this course, we believe that we could strengthen
the impact of the Wo-men project by presenting this positive initiative
developed by Group for European Integration. Introduction
The Law on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men (no. 202/2002)
regulates for Romania the equality of chances between women and men
concerning their participation in decision making, through its Chapter
IV (articles no. 21 and 22), which stipulates an equitable and balanced
representation of women and men within the decisional authorities of the
social partners. Even so, many of the studies, surveys and
investigations undertaken, showed in their conclusions that the woman is
far from being in an equitable position in society. Articles like
“Inequity of the chances in accessing the political life” by Liliana
POPESCU analyses the political life and women’s difficulty in acceding
to leading positions and public functions. The present course is
aimed at women in order to enable them understanding the necessity of
women in decision making, the rights that women have by law to hold
public functions and also the means of achieving this on as large a
scale possible. Aim and objectives
This Training Course is intended to be a useful tool in offering
access to up-to-date information and legislation (statistics, reports,
surveys, laws, decrees, etc.) in the field of women’s right of acceding
to public functions and to properly train the women to act as decision
makers. The Training Course intends therefore, to change the mentality
concerning the woman role within civil society and improve society’s
general perception related to the woman’s place in politics and in the
framework of public authorities. The general objectives of the present
Training Course are:
- To provide accurate information about the
woman’s status in Romania related to holding positions and public
functions;
- To offer to women the theoretical knowledge necessary to
become a public functionary/civil servant/office worker;
- To enable
women to achieve the specific skills and abilities necessary when hold a
public function;
- To increase women’s involvement in the life of
civil society;
- To induce a change of mentality both to women and men
concerning the woman’s role in decision taking.
Target group
- First
level: women having at least a medium level of education.
- Second
level: trainers from the formal, informal and non-formal educational
systems, entire civil society.
Topics and description
- European
legislation on Gender Issues
- Romanian laws and decrees on Equal
opportunity between women and men
- Women in public functions:
challenge or necessity
- Elements of masculine psychology, feminine
psychology and psychology of the sexes
- Communication between sexes
- Using ICT and foreign languages when holding a public function
- Key
issues when you are a women and you are working within the public
authority network:
- how to dress yourself;
- how to behave during the meetings;
- levels of protocol;
- relationship with mass media;
- image construction;
- conflicts management;
- decision taking;
- relations with superiors and subordinates;
- working with other people
- Changing the society mentality in relation with public functions held by
women: ways to do it.
The content of the Training Course was devised as
a textbook, printed on paper, preserving its feature as an interactive
educational instrument. In the coming period it is intended totransfer
the content on a CD-Rom as well and to adapt it as an e-learning tool.
We foresaw among the subjects to be taught some topics which will
provide the necessary knowledge at theoretical level, but also others
that will form/generate appropriate skills and abilities to the women
trainees, in order to enhance their potential to hold public functions,
increase their capacity and make them ready to compete for such
positions. In addition to the already designed content of the Training
Course we intend to add the results (at regional and national level) of
the future elections that will take place in Romania for the positions
in local administrations. It will be a good opportunity to enlarge the
range of statistical information concerning the proportion of posts in
public administration held by women in Romania, and maybe to conduct a
comparison with the situation obtained in the previous round of
elections from the year 2000 (seeing thus whether there have been any
changes). Training methods The modules of the Training Course are
designed to match both the requirements of individual study
(self-learning) and those of the learning conducted by a teacher. The
course duration is 20 hours (including the seminars/practical
applications). We intend to use several categories of educational
methods:
- Communication methods
- oral communication (description,
conversation, dialogue)
- writing communication
- visual communication
- Exploring methods (observation, direct exploration, modelling,
problem-solving)
- Practical action – methods (direct action,
simulation)
Special attention must be accorded to the group-work
methods, which are specific to adult education. In that category, we
consider, brain storming, role-playing, educational games, etc. A
further useful method is small-group discussion in tutorials, which can
be used for training the subjects that then lead to the dissemination of
the learned ideas. Also, a computer assisted learning programme may be
developed, which poses the problem of writing an algorithm for teaching
a topic. As a conclusion, all the methods and actions used to achieve
our goal must be based on the main idea that the subjects are adult
people. (In other words, they do not respond to our actions like
schoolboys). On the contrary, they usually reject training that reminds
them of school and for that reason, we must not use the formal approach
of a teacher, but rather the less formal one of a mentor, or coach.
Implementation in Romania
As the present Training Course was designed as
the result of an initiative of the Group for European Integration,
starting from the real situation of the woman’s condition and position
within Romanian society, it follows that it will be taught for the first
time in Romania by the team of the Group for European Integration in
year 2004. The courses will be organized in the Argeº County, having as
trainees women wanting to accede to public functions. Based on the
dissemination actions we have undertaken related to the organization of
this course, substantial interest has already been expressed in the
course by members of the target group.
Sources/references
You can
obtain more information about this course by emailing at:
gchir@xnet.ro
or by visiting the web site of the Group for European Integration at the
address: www.gie.ro.
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