Equity Challenges in Romanian Education: Towards Sustainable Education for all Students

This article aims to analyze, from the perspective of the objectives of sustainable development, as they were stated in the report of the World Commission of Environment and Development (WCED), "Our Common Future", the challenges faced by the education system in Romania, especially those that come from the perspective of equity, ensuring access to education (regardless of level), its ability to offer equal chances and opportunities that allow students to develop and reach their own potential. The multiple reforms of the system had the objective of increasing quality, adapting it to the fast pace of changes in society, economy or technologies, to the prospects of preparing graduates for a better insertion in a labor market that is also changing. Beyond the output of the system, which can be evaluated from the perspective of sustainable development, it is important that the system itself evaluates to what extent it satisfies these objectives. To what extent is the equity of the system ensured, how deep are the gaps between urban and rural environments in terms of access to resources, to what extent is social inequity reproduced in the educational system, how much is the principle of equal opportunities respected, are aspects of maximum importance in defining a sustainable education system. The main objective of the article is to realize an econometric model between dropout rate and the proportion of education expenditures.