Şcolile Normale de Conducătoare de grădini de copii: între viziunea pedagogilor şi activitatea educativă desfăşurată în primul deceniu interbelic
Pedagogical Schools for Kindergarten Teachers: From Project to Educational Process during the First Interwar Decade

Summary/Abstract: The first pedagogical schools for kindergarten teachers in Romania were created at the end of the First World War. Prior to 1920, the personnel in preschool institutions had an urban background: secondary school graduates who were allowed to teach after passing a special exam on Pedagogy. The new schools were opened in Bucharest, Iaşi, Chişinău, Braşov and Deva. Their enrolment comprised mostly young students from rural areas or from low-income urban classes. Additionally, some of these institutions started out as orphanages or asylums for war orphans, only to be later transformed into pedagogical schools for girls. Therefore, they had two different roles: education and social assistance. The partnerships that the Ministry of Education skilfully established with private or public institutions, such as the Protection of War Orphans Society or the Ministry of Health and Social Care, allowed it to expand the school network and to share the financial burden; but not the authority to make decisions. Still, creating new schools meant taking on new financial ventures that were mostly dependent on the state budget. Consequently, during the 1920s the new schools struggled to ensure proper nutrition and housing conditions for their students, who were mainly orphans or came from impoverished rural areas. Despite these obstacles, the pedagogical schools that were preparing kindergarten teachers were able to reach their goal. They successfully trained new generations of young professionals who became part of a country-wide educational programme designed by the state to socially and culturally integrate the nation’s youth.

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