School dropout in the perspective of state failure

How long can a country with such a deficient education system survive before it goes bankrupt?Romania is the European country with the highest rate of early dropouts from compulsory education (Eurostat: 16%). Behind these statistics, however, lies a deeper problem: due to the political class’s neglect of the education system over the past three decades, this complex system is bleeding from numerous wounds and is trapped in a cycle of perpetual political instability. Today, dropping out of school has already become a practice passed down to the second generation. Studies show that it would take at least 10 years of investment and sweeping reforms, orchestrated according to a master plan that addresses each major problem area, to restore education to its true mission.

What happens when school dropout is passed down from one generation to the next?The documentary film “Children of the Network” offers an extreme starting point for this question. Children from families where the parents, in turn, dropped out of school grow up outside the formal system and in the underground economy; the only state institution they actually have to deal with is prison. Some end up being exploited even by their own families and drawn into organized theft rings operating in Paris. For this second generation, getting back into school and reintegrating into an educational path becomes even more difficult. School dropout thus no longer appears merely as an individual failure or a failure of the education system, but as a mechanism for perpetuating exclusion from one generation to the next.

The central questions of the doktalk are:What will the public sphere in Romania look like if the education system, subject to superficial changes, does not undergo a comprehensive overhaul and the dropout rate rises to a quarter of the population? What will public safety and health, the functioning of public institutions, the labor market, and and who will sustain the formal economy? What might be the phased approach to reforming the education system over the next 10 years to bring it back to normal?  How does one govern a state that has failed institutionally? What must be done to avoid state bankruptcy? What is the cost of inaction at this point?