Covid-19 Crisis ? a wake-up call for Romanian Higher Education System

AuthorGabriela Marchis
PositionAssociate Professor, PhD. Danubius University of Galati, Romania
Pages209-220
ISSN: 2067 9211 Performance and Risks in the European Economy
209
Covid-19 Crisis a wake-up call for
Romanian Higher Education System
Gabriela Marchis1
Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic has had a tremendous impact on the life of people from around the world
in almost every way. We are taking this situation very seriously and we acknowledge and fully support the
various travel and public gathering restrictions to help slow down the spread of the virus. The purpose of this
study is to provide the most suitable solutions for Romanian Higher Education System in order to tackle this
global crisis. Current knowledge states the importance of e-learning activities in providing educational
services all over the world. In light of these new circumstances, we feel obligated to let our academic network
know how we are addressing this challenge while continuing to support all of our professors, students, staff,
with the aim of maximizing th e safety of our community at large. To ensure the safety of peoples, some of
our academic activities ar e held in an interactive, live online setting, thanks to the possibility of using our e-
learning platform: Danubius Online. Secondly, all community collaboration activities were moved in on-lin e,
in order to avoid any possible health risk regarding the Covid -19 outbreak. This paper aims to represent a
reflection on current academia reality, as the coronavirus situation evolves, because the COVID-19 crisis
moves faster than decision-makers, and under these circumstances, re-thinking Higher Education System
becomes a priority.
Keywords: online education; digital skills; knowledge management; information technologies; innovation
JEL Classification: I23; I28; I18; I12
1. Introduction
The coronavirus outbreak allows us to better understand and diagnose Romanian Higher Education
System. The extraordinary situation generated by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic revealed
some of the problems that Romanian universities are facing: poor infrastructure; insufficient training
of both teachers and students in using ICT; the reluctance of decisional factors for e-learning activities,
lack of experience in on-line communication, etcetera.
This continues to be an unprecedented time that we live in, with impacts on health, institution and
business environments, and also the way we live our daily lives. As we all continue to navigate
through these evolving challenges, we want to identify some possible solutions in order to support the
academic community as best we can because Universities have to adapt to these new sets of
circumstances, and also to find ways to continue to support our policy communities during these
difficult times.
1Associate Professor, PhD. Danubius University of Galati, Romania, Address: 3 Galati Blvd., 800654 Galati, Romania, Tel.:
+40372361102, Fax: +40372361290, Corresponding author: gabrielamarchis@univ-danubius.ro.

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