Financiarul

There is no head of state and government in the European Union that should deny that the most important and the only sure resource of the EU member countries is education, President Traian Basescu told the debate on “Romania in 2020: Future Prospects,” which was organized by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Targu Mures (central Romania) on Tuesday.

“Nothing, neither the oil reserves, nor the gas ones, nor the nuclear power stations can replace the importance of the education system of every country. This system can create people with competence s, the country can become competitive. If the education system cannot create people with competences, the country cannot become competitive.

The most important resource we can have, as we do not have it, and the most important resource used by the politicians of the states that joined the EU earlier than we did is education. It does not matter if a barrel of oil costs 100 dollars or 30 dollars.
If you do not have well qualified manpower, as a consequence of the efficiency of the education system, the country is doomed to fail. Natural resources are extremely little important in the future developments.

If you have competences generated by school, by the education system, you will also find what to put instead of what you do not have, by innovation, by research, and if the resources cost more money, it is OK if you have competent people that can use it in an economical way,” said the Head of State.

Traian Basescu emphasized the fact that the mot important resource of a nation was the creation of competences by school and that, in some countries, no matter how many resources they might have, as is the case of some African countries that export large quantities of oil, people lived in the 17th century for the very reason that school did not help the nations to turn to good account what God gave them.

“We too face this problem: we have agriculture, conditions to have an excellent agriculture, to have farm productions for 80 million citizens but to import 70 percent of food. Why? Because we did not create capacities and the competences that should change, first of all, the way we deal with agriculture and, second, change the raw material generated by agriculture into food. In real economy too productivity is also given by the competences created by school,” said President Basescu.