Organisational aspects

Continuous professional development (CPD) of teachers in the Republic of Moldova is mandatory throughout their entire professional activity and is carried out through various activities organised by educational service providers, based on continuous professional training programmes provisionally authorised/accredited under Government Decision No. 616/2016, or coordinated by the Ministry of Education and Research.

Higher education institutions, which have obtained accreditation for at least one undergraduate or integrated higher education programme in a field of professional training, are entitled to organise CPD programmes of maximum 900 hours/30 credits in this field of professional training, after self-evaluation within the institution, according to accreditation standards, evaluation criteria, performance indicators, evaluation standards and minimum mandatory evaluation standards.

Teachers follow CPD courses at least once every 3 years. The required number of hours/credits that a teacher must attend/accumulate is at least 300 hours/10 study credits.

Continuous professional training can be organised through:

1) professional development and specialisation programmes, retraining courses, organised by institutions providing educational services that hold provisionally authorised/accredited programmes, or coordinated with the Ministry of Education and Research;

2) national programmes managed and financed by the Ministry of Education and Research (Investing in Teachers, Investing in Educators, Retraining of Teachers, etc.);

3) mentoring and coaching programmes, through which experienced teachers support novice teachers;

4) workshops and seminars, held in schools or within the Local Specialised Body in the field of Education (OLSDI);

5) international mobilities and exchanges of experience, through various programmes.

The organisation of CPD of teachers in general education begins with the identification of the professional training needs of teachers. In each educational institution, the specialist responsible for continuous professional development organises annual discussions to identify the professional training needs of teachers. The director of the institution, approves by Order the Annual Plan for Continuous Professional Development of Teachers, monitors the CPD at the institutional level and ensures at least once every 3 years the training of all teachers within the institution he manages. The list of teaching staff requesting CPD courses is then submitted to the OLSDI.

OLSDI, responsible for coordinating and monitoring the CPD process at the district/municipal level, systematises data by district/municipality and transmits them to the institutions providing educational services/the Ministry of Education and Research. The institutions providing educational services develop professional training programmes, so that they correspond to the training needs and real requirements of the educational system.

Teachers personally enroll in CPD courses. The delegation order is issued by the director of the educational institution. Courses may be organised either at the premises of educational service providers, or on-site in general education institutions, or at the OLSDI. For situations in which courses are organised with the travel of trainers, the directors of educational institutions or OLSDI ensure their proper organisation.

Where the Ministry of Education and Research, in its capacity as manager of national programmes, launches national CPD programmes (Investing in Teachers, Investing in Educators, Retraining of Teaching Staff, etc.), it applies its own questionnaires to identify the training needs of teachers, analyses the data collected from OLSDI and initiates the procedure for contracting educational service providers that carry out teacher training.

At the request of teachers, educational institutions are entitled to apply to the national programmes launched by the Ministry of Education and Research to train the entire teaching staff. The criteria for applying to the programme are established by the Ministry of Education and Research in the application announcement for each programme.

The Ministry of Education and Research coordinates the process of registering institutions and teaching staff in the national programmes as well as the implementation of the CPD process according to the schedules established by the contracted educational service providers (Regulation on the continuous professional development of teachers from general education).

Incentives, supporting measures and funding for participation in continuing professional development (CPD) activities

Upon completion of the continuing professional development (CPD) programmes, teachers undertake final assessments, which represent a set of theoretical and/or practical tests specified in the programmes and receive certificates accompanied by a supplement.

The state guarantees access and supports, including financially, the CPD of teachers. The financing of the continuous professional development of teachers in the context of lifelong learning is carried out from public and/or private sources, through financing and co-financing by employers, non-governmental organisations, from non-reimbursable funds within international programmes, as well as through the contribution of beneficiaries.

The Ministry of Education and Research, with the responsibility of managing national programmes, annually launches and finances, within the limits of allocated financial resources, national CPD programmes (Investing in Teachers, Investing in Educators, Retraining of Teaching Staff, etc.) from the state budget allocations. 

The educational institution is entitled to plan at least 2 percent of the its payroll for continuous professional development, if it has financial resources available in this regard, and ensures the training of teachers who have not benefited from training within the national programmes managed by the Ministry of Education and Research (Regulation on continuous professional development of teachers in general education).