The Effect of Private Tutoring on Social Equality within the EU: The Case of Romania

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The Effect of Private Tutoring on Social Equality

within the EU: The Case of Romania

MA Thesis in European Studies Graduate School for Humanities Universiteit van Amsterdam

Author: Andrei Frank Student number: 11751975

Main Supervisor: Dr. Laszlo Marácz

Second Supervisor: Dr. Anne van Wageningen

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The thesis’ purpose is addressing the EU’s role regarding the Eastern European growing shadow economy created by private tutoring. I highlight the impact of private tutoring on social equality, emphasizing the need to tackle this issue because the growing inequality gap in Eastern European states hampers their EU integration. Therefore, my research question is what was the EU’s role in private tutoring’s expansion in post-socialist states, and what can the EU do to deal with private tutoring’s unintended consequences on social equality and the making of social policy.

I aim to show that the EU ignored private tutoring, assessing shadow education problems only in the 2010s, when commissioning studies on it (Bray 2011; NESSE 2012). Furthermore, the EU might have fostered contextual factors encouraging the 1990s private tutoring boom. I argue this was caused by the EU’s neoliberal discursive change and its new membership criteria. Given post-socialist states’ fragile economic, social and political situation in the 1990s (Roland 2001; Simai 2006), the EU’s rushed pressures for market liberalization and democratization conditioned prospective Member States (MS) to engage in public spending cuts on education and changes in education’s provision, making them prone to private tutoring.

Given the correlations between private tutoring and social inequality (Bray 1999; Popa 2007; Bray 2011; NESSE 2012; Hille et al. 2016), this is a problem for an EU that champions social equality (NESSE 2012) and tries to integrate MS. Therefore, after a thorough analysis of private tutoring, done in chapters two and five, I suggest policy recommendations for EU policy-makers, in chapter seven, on what should and can be done regarding private tutoring. In chapter six, I focus on my case study, Romania, which has been chosen because it represents one renowned private tutoring example (Popa 2007; Bukowski 2017). This case will be relevant for other post-socialist states, because they confront with high numbers of pupils/students resorting to private tutoring (Bray 2011; Bukowski 2017), revealing a pattern for post-socialist states. Though their

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post-1989 trajectories have been different, and they have specific contextual factors, there are sufficient similarities to build policy proposals from Romania’s case study for other post-socialist countries. Romania can serve as a starting point for the EU, which must focus on this growing shadow education and provide support to MS in regulating private tutoring.

I employ two theoretical tools, complementing each other in establishing the EU’s role in and persistence of private tutoring. Firstly, I rely on historical institutionalism to reveal the “stickiness” of education-related decisions taken by post-socialist governments. Communism’s fall represents what historical institutionalists call a “critical juncture” (Pierson and Skocpol 2002). Based on the critical juncture context, the political and social system’s reformation was possible, and Romania, like other post-socialist states, made policy changes, altering its policy path. The post-Communist transition during this critical juncture is frequently analysed through new institutionalism (Thelen 1999). The 1990s Romanian transition contributed to educational reforms and its approach towards education, as Romania embraced neoliberal ideas and created stakeholders that fought for the continuation of the educational system’s new organization. Historical institutionalism captures Romania’s new policy path, revealing the national and EU institutions’ role in influencing agents’ preference formation in the educational sector (Meyer and Rowan 2006).

The second theoretical tool used is agenda-setting and framing theories. This complements historical institutionalism because it captures the EU’s role during the 1990s critical juncture period. It reveals the European Commision’s powers to bring issues on the European agenda and use political capital to pressure states into internalizing those issues (Larsson and Trondal 2005; Ertl 2006; Blom-Hansen 2008). The agenda-setting theory elucidates how the Commission reframed education policy, linking it with economic matters. Consequently, the EU could influence policy fields in which it had no legal competence while emboldening prospective MS to assent to neoliberal discourses (Littoz-Monnet 2012). The agenda-setting theory sheds light on why post-socialist states followed certain policy paths, while historical institutionalism

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explains the possibility of changing the policy path in the 1990s and why this new policy path is “sticky”, highlighting the conditions making private tutoring pervasive.

In chapter two, I explain private tutoring, its impact, causes, showing its correlations with social inequality. Then, in chapter three, I focus on the EU’s transition from a Rhineland model discourse to a neoliberal one, revealing the discourse’s impact on education’s provision in prospective MS. In chapter four, I present the benefits of historical institutionalism and agenda-setting theory in studying private tutoring. I apply these theoretical lenses on my analysis, which starts in chapter five with the following EU policy and legal choices: the Maastricht Treaty, the Copenhagen criteria and the Lisbon Strategy. After this, in chapter six, I present Romania’s private tutoring history, 1990s and early 2000s education reforms, and how these developed factors favouring private tutoring. I connect this with the EU’s pressures, comparing pre-accession reforms’ impact on education with EU membership requirements. Based on this, I conclude with policy recommendations, in chapter seven, for the EU and national policy-makers to tackle private tutoring’s unintended consequences.

2. Private Tutoring

2.1. Conceptual Explanation

This section is dedicated to clarifying what private tutoring is, its types and impact on social equality, highlighting conditions favouring private tutoring and how neoliberal changes created a favourable environment for shadow education’s development.

Private tutoring is the activity through which individuals gain money by providing pupils/students with private lessons supplementing mainstream education (Bray 2003; Popa 2007; Bray and Kobakhidze 2014; Bukowski 2017). By private, I mean outside formal educational institutions, received by those paying extra (Bray 1999; Bray and Kobakhidze 2014). These private courses rely on school curriculum (Bray 1999; Bray 2011), but they will supplement it, employing pedagogical tactics not used in class and

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covering information beyond the curriculum (Popa 2007; Bray and Kobakhidze 2014). However, private tutoring is limited to courses that improve pupils’/students’ performance in exams/classes. For example, a student, pursuing an economics degree, receiving private classes in painting will not be considered as engaging in private tutoring (Bukowski 2017). The painting classes would enrich them as an individual but they will have no influence over the student’s performance in the economic class, making them irrelevant for the student’s academic development. If the student would be tutored in micro-economy, then these supplementary skills could be used to outperform non-tutored classmates. The tutored subject must be part of educational institutions’ curriculum to be considered private tutoring (Bukowski 2017). Private tutoring takes multiple forms based on who performs the tutoring, the lessons’ structure, nature and intensity, covered subjects and the tutor-tutee relationship.

In terms of nature, they can be formal or informal, provided in regulated or unregulated environments. The service’s provision can be done by an individual or a company (Silova and Bray 2006, 72-73; Bray and Kwo 2013). Tutoring companies are not widespread in Europe (Silova and Bray 2006, 73; Bukowski 2017), with only Germany, Latvia and Bulgaria preferring them to individuals (Bray 2011).

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(Bukowski 2017)

Tutors can be university or secondary school students (Bray and Kwo 2013; Silova and Bray 2006, 81-82), but, usually, they will be former/current teachers/lecturers (Silova and Bray 2006, 81-82; Bray 2011; Bray and Kwo 2013), which alters the tutor-tutee relationship. They can have formal interactions in mainstream education, when the tutor is the tutees’ teacher/lecturer (Bray 1999; Popa and Acedo 2006; Bray 2011), or they can have no academic relationship outside the private tutoring setting (Bray 1999). Tutors and tutees can be related, however, if so, I will be interested in the tutoring activity only if there is a financial gain involved for the tutor (Popa 2007). The tutor-tutee links can be more complicated if based on a referral system (Silova and Bray 2006, 95-96; Silova 2010). This system refers to third parties, people who are not tutors or tutees, recommending tutors to pupils that they know, or vouching for pupils so that tutors would accept to offer them private classes. In this example, the tutoring relationship is set up by an individual who will not take part in the tutoring session. This relationship is not professional, as it is blurred by the relationships that tutors/tutees have with

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referees. The referral system is used to avoid pupils being tutored by class teachers. So, pupils are referred to teachers from different classes/schools while the teacher from their class tutors pupils of those teachers to which they recommended their own pupils, in an effort to avoid unethical situations (Silova and Bray 2006, 95-96; Silova 2010).

The intensity refers to the number of hours of private tutoring lessons attended. Intensity is important for understanding the commitment to private tutoring, reasons for which people engage in it and costs (Bray 1999; Silova and Bray 2006, 74-75; Smyth 2008). Private tutoring hours peak before exams, highlighting how pupils/students try to increase their chances of obtaining higher marks (Popa 2007; Bray 2011; Bray and Kwo 2013). The lessons are also done throughout the year (Bray 2011; Bray and Kwo 2013), usually on a weekly basis (Silova and Bray 2006, 74-75), with most taking place during weekends. Holidays are used to increase tutoring’s intensity, as pupils’ schedules are emptier and can include more tutoring hours (Bray 2011). The intensity can also be measured by checking on how many subjects pupils are tutored.

Graph 2

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The intensity depends on families’ budget, as lessons are charged hourly, which means that lower-income families have difficulties in maintaining intense tutoring sessions for their children (Bray 1999). In Iveta Silova’s study, almost half of the survey respondents who were not being tutored, claimed that the family’s low income was the reason for that (2010). Furthermore, costs that families bear are higher if children have to commute to attend private tutoring (Popa 2007). The costs families have to bear can be very high, as graph 3 suggests.

Graph 3

(data from Bray 2011)

The lessons’ structure depends on how many students are tutored per session. It can be done individually, with one teacher tutoring one pupil, or in smaller groups of pupils (Biswal 1999; Silova and Bray 2006, 77-78; Bray 2011; Bukowski 2017). Another option, used in Asian states, is having large classrooms, resembling mainstream education classes (Bray 2011). This mass tutoring is an affordable option, allowing pupils from lower-income families to receive private tutoring (Silova and Bray 2006, 77; Bukowski 2017). The tutoring sessions’ design affects how information is relayed to pupils. By

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engaging in mass tutoring, pedagogical tools used in individual sessions, are no longer available (Bray 2011). For example, focusing on each student’s needs, covering all the curriculum, approaching elements not present in the curriculum, are common in one-on-one sessions but not in mass tutoring. Pupils take passive roles in mass-tutoring as opposed to individual classes (Silova and Bray 2006; Bray 2011).

Attention should be paid to which subjects are covered by private tutoring. Final examinations subjects are the most common choice for pupils taking private tutoring classes (Bray 1999; Silova and Bray 2006, 75-77; Popa 2007; Bray 2011; Bray and Kwo 2013). Mathematics and national languages are part of final exams in most countries (Bray and Kwo 2013), making them ideal for private tutoring. In Poland, when mathematics no longer was a compulsory final exam subject, the pupils taking mathematics tutoring classes decreased exponentially. However, tutoring lessons for history and foreign languages increased among Polish pupils in their last high school year given how these subjects became mandatory for final exams (Bray 2011). This situation is replicated throughout Eastern European states.

Table 1

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10 2.2. Private Tutoring Causes

Some of private tutoring’s causes have been created or exacerbated by neoliberal changes to education’s provision. Neoliberal changes shall be discussed in chapter three, as, for now, I just enumerate private tutoring’s causes. Private tutoring’s description helps identify its incidence, and determine its causes. The main cause, in Eastern Europe, is teachers’ low wages. Private tutoring becomes a tool for survival, offering teachers subsistence funds (Biswal 1999; Silova and Bray 2006, 89; Popa 2007; Bray 2011; Bukowski 2017). Low wages are caused by public spending cuts to the educational sector since the 1980s. These cuts blurred the line between the public and private, as citizens had to acquire services which were until then state provided. Parents had to pay for transport to schools, school supplies, classroom’s maintenance and other adjacent expenses as the schools’ budget decreased considerably over the past decades (Popa 2007).

Another reason is associated with professionalism, namely with teachers’ need to feel valued at their workplace and empowered to successfully perform their job (Popa and Acedo 2006; Popa 2007). The wage reflects how valued teachers feel, as they lose their job stability by losing economic independence and having to work in more than one school or take a second job outside the educational sector (Bray and Silova 2006, 88; Bray 2011). The professional development opportunities are reduced due to public spending cuts (Bray and Silova 2006, 48-49). Professionalism goes beyond wages also referring to pedagogical skills that teachers can use, the hours spent in class, relationship with students, and authority to design their teaching methods (Popa 2007). Therefore, some teachers engage in private tutoring for professional reasons, to focus on one-on-one sessions with genuinely interested pupils/students. This teaching process covers more information, and allows teachers to directly interact with active pupils/students (Popa 2007). Moreover, by spending more time with pupils, teachers can understand which areas need improvement, and tailor the teaching process to pupils’ benefit (Bray 1999). In mainstream classes, when teachers focus on thirty pupils,

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they cannot cater to each’s interests and ensure they understand what is being taught (Popa 2007).

The culture’s commodification affects teachers’ appreciation of the workplace. Due to neoliberal ideas, discussed in chapter three, education became a tool for securing employment. Consequently, the subjects’ contents become relevant for pupils as means to an end and not ends in themselves (Smyth 2008). Teachers’ interest in their subject can no longer be conveyed in the same way in class, as pupils are focusing on memorizing information to pass exams, ensuring that they receive academic qualifications needed to increase employment chances (Popa 2007; Smyth 2008). Teachers use private tutoring lessons to immerse pupils into their subject, teaching them how to operate with a subject’s contents, and not just mechanically memorize them.

In chapter three, I address how neoliberal changes to education’s provision reinforced contextual factors favouring private tutoring. For now, I just mention different neoliberal changes in education’s provision which favour private tutoring’s incidence. The increased classroom sizes make it difficult for teachers to establish bonds with pupils/students (Popa and Acedo 2006). Furthermore, the increasing volume of information in curricula and limited time spent with pupils because of reduced class hours, makes it harder for teachers to cover all the curriculum (Bray 1999; Bray and Silova 2006, 49-50; Popa 2007; Bray 2011). This creates a sense of inadequacy for not meeting state-imposed requirements, creating gaps in pupils’ knowledge given the curricula’s poor planning. The post-socialist states’ curriculum remained overloaded and encyclopaedic, failing to teach pupils how to apply knowledge to new situations, being focused on knowledge acquisition instead of skill-development. Private tutoring became necessary to retain all that knowledge, while developing other skills (Silova 2010).

Just as private tutoring helps teachers regain control over their profession, it can also create an opposite response to the culture’s commodification. Teachers could tailor private tutoring lessons so that pupils learn how to pass exams, instead of covering

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curricula (Bray 1999; Popa 2007). Given how final tests became standardized (Doherty 2007), pupils can be prepared to mechanically tackle exams’ requirements without building up their knowledge. The teachers might abuse of their connections with people designing the tests and use information from them to increase the tutees’ chances of passing exams (Bray 2003; Silova and Bray 2006), creating an unfair and unethical advantage for those paying for tutoring.

The concept of “diploma disease” is another important private tutoring cause (Popa 2007). The diplomas’ commercialization creates an environment in which pupils are socialized to obtain diplomas at all costs, since they will have difficulties finding employment without academic credentials (Silova and Bray 2006, 113; Popa 2007; Silova 2010). Parents feel pressured to do whatever necessary to ensure a stable future for their children. Since parents might be unable to help them with studying, or might not have the time, and since they lose trust in public education’s capacity to help their children, they pay for private tutoring classes to ensure that children pass exams (Bray 1999; Popa and Acedo 2006).

Public spending cuts also encourage pupils to pursue private tutoring. Since diplomas become so important, there is an increasing amount of pupils applying for universities, but due to public spending cuts, universities cannot accept them all, so admission tests are created (Popa 2007; Smyth 2008). The tests’ difficulty is increased to ensure a thorough selection process, but the educational resources provided in schools are not developed to help pupils meet these new admission requirements because the secondary schools’ budget has been drastically reduced (Popa 2007). Therefore, private tutoring becomes a necessity to be well-prepared for passing high-stake university admission tests, given the reduced number of state-funded spots in tertiary education (Bray and Silova, 2006 52-56; Bray 2011; Zambeta and Kolofousi 2014). The social advancement offered by universities and increasing unemployment rates in post-socialist states exacerbated pupils’ desire to enter into tertiary education (Bray and Silova 2006, 50-56; Silova 2010).

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(Silova and Bray 2006, 51)

Weak trade unions and rampant corruption favour private tutoring’s incidence. Incoherent trade unions that breed in-fighting and fail to pressure governments cannot improve teachers’ wages or working conditions (Popa 2007), therefore, forcing teachers to use private tutoring for subsistence and professional fulfilment. Corruption creates a shadow economy, and, if this is well-developed, it facilitates connections between people in ways that help teachers easily set-up an educational shadow economy. The culture created by informal networks spreads to education, as corruption will be seen as a tradition, a mechanism of solidarity among citizens rather than an illegal act (Precupetu 2008).

In post-socialist states, another cause is a feeling of liberation. Private tutoring existed pre-1989 but was limited to Communist elites. After Communism’s fall, people could

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finally engage in something previously reserved to the ruling class, making them willing to use it just to assert their new-found freedom (Bray and Silova 2006, 45).

Once the aforementioned causes facilitate private tutoring’s presence and entrench this activity, other reasons become apparent. Pupils might seek tutoring to systematize information obtained in class, fill in knowledge gaps caused by missing classes or by not understanding what was taught in class, studying in-depth topics, covered in class, out of interest (Silova and Bray 2006, 84-85). Furthermore, tailoring tutoring classes to meet pupils’ needs is also an incentive. Parents viewed this, specifically in Eastern Europe, as a way to help their children adapt to the new post-socialist socio-political realities. The education market-driven reforms socialize parents to view tutoring classes as a customer service meeting children’s needs (Silova and Bray 2006, 45; Silova 2010).

I, now, assess private tutoring’s advantages and disadvantages and its connection to social equality. Private tutoring can help lagging pupils catch up with their peers, and equalize pupils’ academic level (Bray 2011). Furthermore, by engaging in private tutoring, mainstream classes are not slowed down for pupils lagging behind, therefore impacting the development of pupils who do not need private tutoring (Popa and Acedo 2006; Bray 2011). Moreover, given how education became a tool boosting the economy, building skills for future employees, private tutoring might prove essential to improve human capital and contribute to better skilled employees (Bray 1999; Silova and Bray 2006, 36-37).

These advantages are counterbalanced by a series of disadvantages. Firstly, though private tutoring could help pupils lagging behind, it is used more by students who already are at the top of their classes (Bray 1999; Bray 2011). They use it to gain a greater edge on the job market. Therefore, the argument that it contributes to closing the knowledge gap is not replicated in reality (Bray and Kwo 2013). Tutoring is seen more as an enrichment tool rather than a remedial one, used by people who already excel in class (Bukowski 2017).

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Secondly, people need funds for private tutoring. There is no correlation between pupils lagging behind and sufficient funds for them to take private lessons, which means that private tutoring does not automatically close gaps, but simply favours pupils that come from affluent families. This creates an unfair situation in which some pupils are academically left behind by pupils who afford tutoring classes (Biswal 1999; Bray 1999).

Thirdly, pupils are fatigued from attending mainstream education and private tutoring, especially given the increased competitiveness existent in entering universities (Bray 1999; Silova 2010). They will be forced to be tutored at an intensity that is too high given that they are in full-time education (Bray 2003). The fatigue is also relevant for teachers, who apart from their work schedule have to provide extra tutoring hours. This impacts on the work performed by pupils/teachers in mainstream education, as they devote too much resources to private tutoring (Bray 1999).

Fourthly, private tutoring can prevent educational reforms, perpetuating a decaying system, inadequate to satisfy pupils’ needs. If pupils’ academic results are great and participation in academic competitions is increasing, it appears that the educational system is properly functioning. However, it is hard to determine if public education or private tutoring is the cause for great academic performances, especially since data on private tutoring is hard to collect given this activity’s shadow character (Bray 1999). An UNESCO report highlighted the issue of superficially treating formal classes while increasing the requirements of passing tests or entering universities since pupils appeared capable of meeting these requirements given their private tutoring classes (Popa and Acedo 2006). This becomes problematic as not all students afford private tutoring classes, and formal classes are not reformed to help them meet new academic requirements.

Fifthly, private tutoring encourages corruption and tax evasion (Biswal 1999; Bray 1999; Bray 2011), impacting states’ abilities to perform their functions and contributing to fiscal crises (Popa 2007). The illegal nature of these courses in some countries, forces

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teachers/pupils to engage in them without paying taxes. Given how pupils/teachers are forced by the inadequacy of state-funding to engage in private tutoring, they might be reluctant to declare the services’ financial nature, and avoid paying taxes for a government that will not use tax revenues to improve the educational sector. Furthermore, teachers become more indebted to pupils paying for tutoring classes than to the state covering their wage, which can encourage them to offer favours in exchange for these tutoring classes. Teachers might discriminate pupils in class if they do not attend their private tutoring classes. They also boost the tutees’ grades even if they do not perform in class, for the reason that they pay for tutoring (Silova 2010). Pupils become afraid of in-class penalties, and are blackmailed to participate in private tutoring (Bray 1999; Silova and Bray 2006, 30; 94-95).

Sixthly, pupils become disinterested in public education, increasing absenteeism rates (Bray 1999), disturbing teaching by not paying attention, failing to respect teachers as they know that they obtain the information needed to pass exams from private tutoring (Bray 1999). This is applicable to teachers also, as their private tutoring income will be higher than their wage, making them demotivated to perform in class (Bray 2011). So, students not engaging in private tutoring might face disinterested class teachers, undisciplined classmates receiving private tutoring and being ahead of the curriculum, teachers that skip parts of the curriculum to create a private tutoring market or teachers that keep the teaching pace at a level established by tutored pupils (Silova and Bray 2006). Therefore, students not engaging in private tutoring will not receive a proper education, being left behind tutored pupils.

Seventhly, teachers are incentivised to withhold curriculum information to create reasons for pupils to pursue private tutoring (Silova and Bray 2006, 94-95; Popa 2007). Given their low pay, teachers rely on income obtained through private tutoring classes, so they need to create a tutoring private market and keep it functional (Biswal 1999; Silova and Bray 2006, 90-96). Therefore, by not covering the curriculum needed for final exams in classes, teachers force pupils to take up supplementary lessons to pass final exams (Bray 1999; Popa 2007). This creates an unfair situation in which people who

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cannot or do not want to attend private tutoring classes will not receive the public education they are entitled to and will be disadvantaged during exams.

Private tutoring’s drawbacks contradict the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and national constitutions based on which all people should have access to free education that develops them personally (Popa 2007; Bray and Kwo 2013). Social inequality is created as people unable to pay for private tutoring will not receive the education they are entitled to in class (Bray 2011). Education becomes linked with people’s funds, which is unacceptable given its importance for people’s social mobility. Without proper education, their capacity to integrate in society will be stunted.

Education becomes a tool for training people to specialize, blocking children into patterns securing employment for them (Bray 1999), without offering a well-rounded set of skills to ease societal integration or teaching them what it means to be a citizen. Private tutoring’s intensity reduces hours spent on social relationships, affecting pupils’ time of reflection over issues like morality, religion or other spirited matters (Bray 1999). Pupils are less educated and more limited to performing tasks. If left to the markets’ powers, private tutoring exacerbates inequity, increasing knowledge gaps between pupils that have funds to use this services and those that cannot afford it (Bray et al. 2013). Higher-income households easily pay for more private tutoring that is of higher quality than what lower-income households can afford (Biswal 1999; Bray and Kwo 2013).

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3. Neoliberalism’s Impact on Education and the EU’s Discourse Change

I now follow the historical trajectory of the expansion of neoliberal ideas and their impact on education’s provision, specifically on how they foster factors favouring private tutoring’s incidence. The EU transitioned from supporting Rhineland capitalism, to supporting a neoliberal capitalist agenda, shaping neoliberalism’s influences on education’s provision. This historical contextualization eases the understanding of how the EU started promoting the neoliberal frame, but, in chapter five, I delve deeper into the frame’s application in the 1990s.

The EEC, the EU’s precursor, emerged as a mechanism ensuring economic cooperation, focusing on the common market and agricultural policies (Pepin, 2007). Therefore, the EU’s roots are economically oriented, however, as opposed to the EU’s present actions, the EEC interfered less with policy fields belonging to the welfare state’s purview (Burchill 2004; Pepin 2007). The EEC’s respect over social policies is lacking nowadays, as the EU uses economic arguments to interfere with MS’s exclusive competence (Burchill 2004). The Rhineland capitalist model existed in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, representing a system in which policy-making was made by consulting stakeholders, ensuring people were involved and their interests were protected (Dyson

In this thesis, the private tutoring definition used is: private, supplementary classes given by an individual/entity in exchange for an amount of money. The classes must:

 be given outside the formal context of mainstream education  cover subjects present on the curriculum

 relevant for giving an academic advantage to the tutee  have contents extending beyond what is being taught in

class

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and Padgett 2005; Be 2008; Bovenberg and Teulings 2009). The goal was securing full employment and ensuring people have strong social security nets, allowing them to lead flourishing lives. Trade unions were in constant negotiation with employers’ unions (Lawn 2001; Dyson and Padgett 2005), and both sides were joining governmental negotiations on policy-making, as a legal prerequisite for decision-making processes. Moreover, employees were involved in corporate governance through different work councils. States were independent from markets, enjoying strong central banks that had monetary and fiscal instruments to keep the social welfare model functioning. Small- and medium-size businesses were supported and relied upon in this system, while the state actively maintained these features (Dyson and Padgett 2005).

Teachers benefitted from this approach, since they were equal partners in planning and organizing the educational system. The local level could shape educational policies (Lawn 2001) due to a welfare state dictating the national discourse, and denying access to external actors in education. The national discourse privileged education as building national identity, creating solidarity, disciplining people, socializing them as proper citizens and developing ethical consciousness (Lawn 2001; Darts 2006). Education was ingrained in the national identity and allowed to develop and organize without external intervention (Lawn 2001). Education was differentiated from training, being associated with norms and values creation, integrating people in society and reducing the incidence of antisocial behaviour. For instance, the 1992 Dutch governmental discourses, relied on pedagogical means to reduce increasing crime rates (Biesta and Miedema 2002). The nation state model emphasizes the importance of belonging to a culture and maintaining one’s traditions, achieving this through education (Lawn 2001). However, the state’s intervention in policy fields decreased considerably since the 1970s, as citizens lost welfare protections. The borderless world makes the nation state model unfeasible, revealing how difficult it is for states to engage with stakeholders in policy-making and mitigate the capital mobility’s influences on education (Lawn 2001; Genschel 2004).

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Technological advancement easing the transfer of information, money and trade (Genschel 2004; Streeck 2014), changing demographics, increasing workforce supply due to women joining the workforce, increased statal interconnections (Genschel 2004; Streeck 2014), emerging collective action challenges, like environmental issues and border control, made it difficult for states to provide social security for citizens (Streeck 2014). Furthermore, the welfare state age was economically prosperous because of the post-WWII reconstruction boom, so, when the 1970s economic stagnation and inflation occurred, states could not meet citizens’ requirements, who became accustomed to a lavish lifestyle during the economic golden age (Streeck 2014). Capital owners acted as agents, refusing to support employees’ ever-growing demands, using international markets and relocation possibilities to search for places where corporate taxes would be low or employees’ rights would be less restrictive and profiting from capital’s increased mobility (Genschel 2004; Streeck 2014). Therefore, globalization, technological advancements and workforce supply changes, helped capital owners establish a strong bargaining position and force states re-regulate markets in their favour, exempting them from taxes or restrictions on how business is conducted.

Welfare states lost the means to tax corporations, while citizens’ demands continued to increase given societal advancements (Genschel 2004; Streeck 2014). The welfare state’s dismantlement was inevitable given the loss in revenue basis and in its ability to redistribute benefits (Genschel 2004; Streeck 2014). States became less active in regulating policy fields, cutting down public spending. The actors in those policy fields became vulnerable as they struggled to obtain funds needed to survive (Ayikoru et al. 2009; Natale and Doran 2012). The EU operated within the context of the financial sector’s increased powers and tried to have more influence on policy fields by adapting to the new context’s rules (Streeck 2014). The EU became less respectful of areas deemed as states’ responsibility or that were supposed to embody a state’s culture. It endorsed markets’ pressures, costing states their diversity and ability to protect citizens’ inalienable rights, by submitting to international actors looking for similar environments to meet their economic goals (Streeck 2014).

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The funding cuts forced educational institutions look for finance from other sources, performing by standards imposed by their new revenue source. Therefore, constant scrutiny is invited, and evaluation is performed on students/teachers (Hood 1995; Tolofari 2005; Natale and Doran 2012). The output mattered more than the process (Hood 1995; Biesta and Miedema 2002; Tolofari 2005; Natale and Doran 2012), as teachers were evaluated based on students’ results, incentivizing them to pass as many students as possible to protect their position. But, to evaluate so many educational institutions and organize them, states were compelled to establish national benchmarks on which educational institutions are evaluated, enforcing standardized testing (Sleeter 2009). This creates the risk of pupils/teachers becoming trained on how to pass exams and not absorb valuable knowledge. Education becomes a way of meeting the markets’ requirements by any means necessary, without focusing on personal development through knowledge-gaining (Biesta and Miedema 2002). The schools became dependent on having enough students and ensuring they achieved top grades, to benefit from funding. So, educational institutions entered into competitions to gain more pupils (Olssen and Peters 2005). Educational institutions catered more to pupils’/parents’ desires, than to meeting educational standards. Consequently, fueling the need for students to resort to private tutoring to compensate for academic shortcomings, and tailor their preparation for passing standardized exams.

Beyond the funding problem, educational institutions no longer focus just on education’s provision, as they become responsible for managing assets and budgets. They deal with buildings’ maintenance and venture in investments to obtain returns keeping their business going (Engelen et al. 2014). Educational institutions have new aspects to juggle with, increasing their precariousness and limiting their possibility to focus on education’s provision. This affects the professionalism of the teaching profession, encouraging teachers to find the satisfaction of fully focusing on students outside the formal environment, namely in private tutoring classes. Moreover, asset management can involve accruing debt, putting educational institutions in a position in which they must respect the lender’s conditions. Consequently, capital owners influence the student in-take, curricula, courses offered, places in which resources are invested,

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taking education’s provision out of educational institutions’ hands (Olssen and Peters 2005; Streeck 2014).

Educational institutions become market-conforming and adopt a business-like model characterized by efficient management, quality assurance, constant evaluation, tailoring courses based on pupils’ feedback, asset management (Bartlett et al. 2002), that aims at ensuring employment for students. The business model goes beyond, altering schools’ management structure, making it centralized and coordinated by a management expert who does not necessarily have an education career. This creates professional structures in institutions, insulating the manager from different departments, ensuring unbiased management of educational institutions (Olssen and Peters 2005; Tolofari 2005; Doherty 2007). Pupils/students express desires to follow courses that increase employment chances, resorting to education as a training tool to join the workforce, and less as a good in itself. This reinforces private tutoring classes’ importance, given the functional nature that was attributed to education under the neoliberal model. Educational institutions must adapt to these requirements and shape curricula to meet employers’ conditions for what counts as good training and what skills pupils/students need in the workforce (Natale and Doran 2012). Education is no longer a public good, needed because it helps personal development. It is now a tool improving human capital to meet capital owners’ and markets’ requirements. The need for diplomas to secure employment becomes a race in which students and educational institutions spend as few resources as possible. Education is no longer used for pupils to discover their interests and develop them, as this would be too risky for capital owners and governments that financially support educational institutions.

4. Theoretical Framework

Before analysing the EU’s role in altering education provision in prospective MS, as described in chapter three, and the Romanian case, I present the theoretical lenses used for my analysis.

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23 4.1. Historical Institutionalism

New institutionalism developed in the 1980s, through Fritz Scharpf’s joint-decision traps studies, which were caused by a polity’s institutional structure, in which multiple agents had veto powers, making consensus difficult to achieve and leading to suboptimal results. Moreover, reverting such decisions was hindered by the requirement of unanimity of all veto players (Scharpf 1988; Jenson and Merand 2010). The institutions’ importance was observed in this case and encouraged researchers to study their influence on policy-making. Afterwards, three strains of new institutionalism developed: rational choice, historical and sociological (Thelen 1999; Schmidt 2010). The three are underpinned by the idea that institutions created political arenas, with specific rules, which agents had to internalize if they were to satisfy their preferences. The web of behavioural rules and patterns imposed by institutions socializes people to act in ways making certain interests, policy choices or preferences unviable (Aspinwall and Schneider 2000).

Though there are multiple definitions for institutions, there is some consensus between the strands. An institution can be societal or statal, defining actors’ interests and structuring power relations between groups/actors. Institutions can be: the structure of party systems, electoral rules, trade unions’ structure and organization, governmental branches (Steinmo et al. 1992; Peters et al. 2005). I use historical institutionalists’ preferred definition: “the formal and informal procedures, routines, norms and conventions embedded in the organizational structure of the polity or political economy” (Kay 2005). Historical institutionalists prefer this because it highlights how institutional rules and conventions shape actors’ behaviour, expressing the importance of informal institutions as well as formal ones (Bates 2014).

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It is essential to account for the conventions created by private tutoring, because, as an informal institution, it constrains people without imposing formal rules of conduct. Such a definition treats private tutoring as a structure influencing agents, connecting private tutoring and state education through agents’ efforts to reconcile meaning created by both institutions. Moreover, educational institutions become constrainers because of their norms and traditions, influencing through informal rules, rather than formal ones (Mistreanu 2010). The limitations created by norms and traditions are consistent with path dependency. This concept explains how future political decision are shaped by elements which constrain actors’ behaviour (Bulmer 1998; Hay and Wincott 1998; Schmidt 2010). I shortly explain historical institutionalism, and path dependency, ignoring the other strands because of space constraints and their irrelevance for my purposes.

I use historical institutionalism because of its “path dependency” concept. This neo-institutionalist strand focuses most on the structure (March and Olsen 1984; Bulmer 1998). As opposed to previous theories assessing structures, historical institutionalism is focused on processes within institutions, not on outcomes, evaluating symbols created by institutions and what behaviour is conditioned by that (March and Olsen

Based on the definition of institutions, private tutoring will be treated as an informal institution because of:

 the large numbers of pupils pursuing private tutoring in Europe

 the complex rules defining this practice  private tutoring’s influence on the national

authorities’ educational policy-making and on the educational sector in general.

Private tutoring becomes an institution in itself that socializes people’s behaviour, and that can be

dismantled only at very high costs given how entrenched it is.

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1984; Bulmer 1998). By studying institutions’ internal logic, it can be seen how agents were socialized to perpetuate institutional cultures and shape their interests accordingly (Bulmer 1998). Institutions become creative forces, as, through their inner workings, they build identities and social cleavages impacting agents’ behaviours and interactions. This leads to institutions guiding people’s ideas on policy-making. Historical institutionalism deviates from previous theories which treated institutions as having functional roles, acknowledging that behaviours and choices are not made exogenously from institutions (March and Olsen 1984; Thelen 1999).

The attention paid to structural contexts becomes useful for capturing contextual constraints and how individuals adapt to them. Some political decisions are eliminated even before the bargaining process starts due to institutional rules (Immergut 1998). The meanings that people operate with, to craft preferences, are altered by meanings circulating within institutions (Bulmer 1998; Immergut 1998; Thelen 1999; Schmidt 2010), revealing institutions’ influence on agents’ preference-formation (Thelen 1999; Aspinwall and Schneider 2000; Meyer and Rowan 2006). Institutions have a dual role, constraining agents, while enabling meaning construction (Aspinwall and Schneider 2000; Schmidt 2010). This attention to context is not limited to institutions, expanding beyond, considering historical contingencies favouring institutional designs (Hay and Wincott 1998). Historical institutionalists admit that environments and historical contingencies limit agents’ institutional design options, shaping people’s ideas and institutional development (Immergut 1998). This is relevant for post-socialist states, since Communism’s fall represents a historical contingency eliminating certain institutional designs, guiding people towards certain policy paths. For example, the long history of a repressed society contributed to a weak civil society, making it difficult to build a political regime in which non-state stakeholders would be involved in policy-making or in which the NGOs and interest groups would be supported (Howard 2003). Another example is the choice made between presidentialism and parliamentarism when organizing post-socialist states (Easter 1997). Communist legacies shaped the choices of independent states formed after the USSR’s collapse, who were more likely to opt for presidential regimes. Communist legacies of strong leadership and centralized

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systems were perpetuated in newly independent states as these failed to restrict access to power for old Communist elites (Crawford and Lijphart 1995; Easter 1997). Eastern European states limited the access of these actors, and the newly empowered political agents were influenced by fears of Communist legacies to impose less centralized and personalized political systems, opting for parliamentary systems (Easter 1997).

Path dependency reflects historical institutionalists belief in institutional stability, and in policy paths’ stickiness, illustrating institutional choices’ unintended consequences (Schmidt 2010). This concept refers to how previously made choices influence future policies, restricting the capacity to pursue policies too different from previously chosen ones (Bulmer 1998; Hay and Wincott 1998). Past decisions carve policy paths, making actors define their preferences based on past decision (Aspinwall and Schneider 2000), which means that future policy decisions are influenced by past decisions, and later will themselves influence future policy decisions (Bulmer 1998; Hay and Wincott 1998; Thelen 1999). Previous choices are difficult to reverse because they became a status quo to which actors get accustomed. The status quo creates stakeholders, who try to maintain the advantages that it provides for them (Bates 2014). The status quo is a system with an internal logic incentivising stakeholders to keep it instead of increasing instability (Bulmer 1998). A status quo reversion or serious changes to it induces too much instability, increasing policies’ reversal costs once people are socialized to operate with them (Jupille and Caporaso 1999). Policy decisions become self-enforcing positive feedback loops, pushing for the acceleration of a policy path development. Simply put: “A path dependent process is one in which initial moves in one direction elicit further moves in the same direction” (Kay 2005, 553).

This is not historical determinism, as historical institutionalists acknowledge deviations from paths or previous decisions’ reversals (Wilsford 1994). Historical determinism claims that laws of history, if discovered, can thoroughly predict what is going to happen. This theory does not refer to actions’ inevitability, but to the fact that every governmental action can be predicted (Shaw 1971; Tilley 1982). This theoretical perspective has been rebuked by Karl Popper since historical developments will be

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contingent on scientific knowledge’s expansion. This knowledge cannot be predicted, otherwise any future breakthrough can already be achieved. Historical determinism can be accepted only when people’s epistemic development is finalized. The contextual differences between different places in the world, different reactions that people have, and constant technological developments introduce too many variables to allow for law-like causal predictions by using historical analysis (Shaw 1971; Tilley 1982). Historical institutionalists admit that path dependency’s stability is punctuated by critical junctures - turbulent moments with a formative function - which cannot be predicted (Peters et al. 2005). They are serious changes in environments, creating sequences of ideas at a particular time, allowing for changing policy paths. Policy paths will be shaped by critical junctures, because these moments have an impact on what ideas and interests can be acted upon (Thelen 1999). They create opportune times for policy changes and opportunities for previously ignored policy choices (Thelen 1999) to become available, eliminating the current institutional landscape’s stability.

Historical institutionalism has problems explaining critical junctures’ emergence and how policy path changes are possible during critical junctures (Peters et al. 2005). New institutionalism favours stability, being limited in explaining institutional or policy change, or deinstitutionalization (Greenwood and Hinings 1996; Kraatz and Zajac 1996; Kay 2005; Peters et al. 2005), and in explaining present/future policy developments (Kay 2005). Another historical institutionalist problem is the existence of multiple contexts in which policy paths were dismantled even if institutions had strong positions and organizational coherency. The limitations of historical institutionalism’s capacity of explaining political change was captured by a study of liberal arts colleges’ evolution in the 1970s and 1980s. It revealed how these institutions professionalized against their interests even if they had strong institutional cultures, many stakeholders and historical traditions helping them impose their interests (Kraatz and Zajac 1996).

Though historical institutionalism has problems, it helps studying institutions’ internal functioning and how they socialize people. Historical institutionalism captures how private tutoring reproduces behaviours and socializes how people organize their lives.

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Given that private tutoring was present before the 1990s in post-socialist states (Popa and Acedo 2006; Silova and Bray 2006; Silova 2010), it has a long history, growing stronger over time, especially if we consider the current participation in private tutoring, in the EU.

Graph 5

(Bukowski 2017)

Historical institutionalism is useful for studying this, and for capturing its interaction with other institutions. Since private tutoring’s incidence was smaller pre-1989, the institutional choices post-1989 might have played a part in the 1990s private tutoring boom (Popa and Acedo 2006; Silova 2010). Historical institutionalism can evaluate inter-institutional interaction, and see how formal and informal education influenced each other (Aurini 2006). The advantage of applying this theory on post-socialist Romania is that this context has a critical juncture, policy path formation and persistence of the new policy path.

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29 4.2. Agenda-setting and Framing Theories

To explain policy paths’ selection, I use agenda-setting and framing theories, showing how the EU’s agenda-setting powers influenced Romanian educational policy-making. The two theories complement each other in explaining policy path formation and persistence. Agenda-setting and framing theories explain how choices made were options in the first place. There is an assumption that policy-making represents a problem-solving tool, however, this implies that problems exist independently of people. But, problems become impactful when people recognize them as such and believe that these issues affect them (Schon 1993; Daviter 2007; van Hulst and Yanow 2016). An issue rises up on the agenda and has remedies designed as policy options only if people feel the need to address those issues (Schon 1993).

Framing is the action through which aspects of our reality are emphasized over others. These aspects are put in a logical sequence, creating a description of a part of our reality (Entman 1993; van Hulst and Yanow 2016). Framing includes repetition of keywords, stereotyped images, or reinforcing clusters of facts/judgements (Entman 1993). Most policy options represent an intersection of interests, policy dimensions and contextual factors (Baumgartner and Mahoney 2008), but policy-makers can select a handful of those to make them more salient and meaningful, framing a policy option (Entman 1993) to meet their goals or ensure problems reach the agenda. The framing mechanism represents a way of understanding reality, explaining its complexities by focusing on aspects viewed as salient (Entman 1993; van Hulst and Yanow 2016).

However, this way of organizing thought depends on people’s existent frameworks for organizing thoughts. People have own mechanisms for understanding what happens around them, which are based on previous experiences, pre-existent biases, familiar cultural symbols, their immediate reality, entrenched societal ways of thinking about issues (Entman 1993; Littoz-Monnet 2012). Consequently, the frames policy-makers construct must be familiar and built upon people’s internal mechanisms. People need to understand a frame’s cues to operate with it (Scheufele and Iyengar 2012).

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Furthermore, the time and space in which frames emerge are relevant, because institutional and political frameworks at a time and space in history favour some frames over others (Daviter 2007; Princen 2007; Princen 2011; Littoz-Monnet 2012). During frame construction, policy-makers must be aware of these constraints and of their competition, as other actors apply different frames on similar contexts. Most policy debates are not focused on disproving policy suggestions’ facts, but are rather contests between different interpretations of issues/policies (Schon 1993; Daviter 2007; Princen 2007). Policy-making is, initially, a selection process in which some perspectives are considered while others are not in a policy’s design (Daviter 2007).

Naming, categorizing and storytelling are framing tools (van Hulst and Yanow 2016) used in studying the EU’s neoliberal framing of education. I focus on how connections between education and economy were made by the selection of aspects from each domain and by building logical connections between those aspects. Naming and categorizing refer to grouping concepts to help people understand them, even if their understanding will be based on a certain perspective. How something is named informs how people should think about it, linking that with concepts which are similar in name (Schon 1993; van Hulst and Yanow 2016). By emphasizing education’s economic aspects, like quality assurance, evaluations, preparing people for employment and by associating the economy with terms like knowledge-based, the two are linked, ignoring aspects that differentiate them and insisting upon similarities (Littoz-Monnet 2012). Later on, I show how the EU used these connections, together with the favourable context - the USSR’s fall and neoliberal ideas gaining support - to create a story framing educational problems in economic terms.

Storytelling is a framing device binding aspects which people deem meaningful or memorable, creating a coherent pattern by finding links between those aspects (Schon 1993; van Hulst and Yanow 2016). The EU’s structure makes it an interesting point of access for different actors to have issues introduced on an agenda, especially if they fail to do so nationally, or if their issues are transnational. Given its many organizations, bureaucratic culture, comitology procedures, the EU opens up multiple political arenas,

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encouraging venue shopping, with agents picking different arenas in which their issue can gain saliency (Princen 2007; Princen 2011). Though that is the case, agenda-setting and framing depend on the EU’s remit and history, as the EU structure favours certain framings over others (Princen 2007; Princen 2011; Littoz-Monnet 2012).

The EU is not a simple constraining device for framing, but also an agent in itself (Littoz-Monnet 2012), aiming at European integration. The rules, set through the Treaties, on EU policy-making or the legislation which MS have to implement establish the EU as a constraining device, but, the Commission can also actively frame issues. For instance, it can establish sub-national coalitions to nationally influence issue framing. Therefore, the EU sets the agenda to expand its ability to influence national policy-making. Due to legal constraints on its competencies, the EU must frame issues to connect them with its exclusive competencies, placing them higher on their agenda to secure legitimacy to influence national agenda-setting (Littoz-Monnet 2012). Furthermore, DGs fight to keep portfolios, avoid mergers or justify the staff members that they have. Therefore, they use framing devices to expand influence at other DGs’ expense (Daviter 2007). DG Education and Culture (DG EAC), has done so, especially in connection to its cultural policy. The usage of neoliberal frames on cultural aspects (Littoz-Monnet 2012) became institutionalized in the whole DG, spreading to educational matters. This increased the DG’s relevance, which, before, had few competencies given its remit (Littoz-Monnet 2012).

Agenda-setting and framing theories illuminate how EU institutions pushed for economic frames, influencing policy-making in prospective MS (Littoz-Monnet 2012). Agenda-setting theories explain how actors engage in conflict expansion, gaining supporters for policy frames they support (Princen 2007; Littoz-Monnet 2012). To get an issue high on the agenda, agents need widespread support for their cause. By bringing many actors to support one side, that side creates an advantage for winning the debate, redrawing lines between an issue’s proponents and opponents. If framing explains the process of making issues relevant (Princen 2007; Littoz-Monnet 2012), agenda-setting reveals alliance formation and the materialization of issues’ saliency. Framing and

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setting are interrelated, as conflict expansion depends on issue-framing and context, while agenda-setting theories explain how issues are dealt with based on their frames (Littoz-Monnet 2012). Agenda-setting should not be confused with problem-setting, since people deeming something a problem through framing might fail enter on the agenda if more salient problems have been framed (Littoz-Monnet 2012). How problems are defined in problem-setting stages informs policy-making processes, specifically how problems are approached and their possible solutions (Princen 2007; van Hulst and Yanow 2016). Framing processes establish the problem and link between problems and perceived solutions (Princen 2007).

Post-socialist states aimed to obtain EU membership. Consequently, how the EU framed problems emboldened prospective MS to adopt similar framing mechanisms. They did so to place themselves on track for receiving EU membership. The initial framing of educational issues at European level impacted national policy-making given that the definition of problems shapes policy-making processes (Daviter 2007).

5. The EU’s 1990s-2000s Enlargement Efforts and Their Influence on Shadow Education

The thesis’ aim is not claiming that the EU caused private tutoring, but that through its membership criteria and integration in other policy fields, the EU influenced the factors contributing to private tutoring’s expansion. In itself, private tutoring is not a negative phenomenon, as it can develop human capital and help slow learners perform in formal school classes and exams (Bray 1999; Silova and Bray 2006, 36-37; Bray 2011). However, the chapter’s aim is showing how disorganized policy-making can create private tutoring’s unintended consequences, which were discussed in chapter two. I present how membership criteria and 1990s economic policies impacted post-socialist states’ economic stature, affecting their ability to fund education. Then, I look at the paradigmatic shift in EU’s educational policies, highlighting how it adopted a neoliberal speech affecting education’s provision and teachers’ working conditions. These actions exacerbated factors facilitating private tutoring’s development in Romania.

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33 5.1. The EU’s Competencies in Education

The EU has limited competences over MS’s education policies, initially limited to vocational education and then expanding, in 1985, to cover university-sector education, after the Gravier European Court of Justice decision (Ertl 2006; Keeling 2006; Corbett 2012). The Maastricht Treaty stated that the EU only supports and supplements MS’s education activities. The EU recognized MS’s exclusive competence in education, and limited itself to creating opportunities for MS to exchange best practices, facilitating students’/teachers’ mobility and promoting cooperation (TEU 1992, art.126-127). This approach continued in the Lisbon Treaty, which established that the EU had support competences. Therefore, whenever MS designed cooperative policies or needed help, the EU provided assistance in coordinating, supporting or supplementing their actions (TFEU 2012, art.2-6). The EU reserved its involvement in education policies just to higher education (HE), since MS showed willingness to collaborate on this educational sector, through the Bologna Process (Keeling 2006), rather than on other sectors. However, even through this, the EU impacted the entire education sector.

5.2. The Maastricht Treaty’s Neoliberal Impact on Accession Procedures

The Maastricht Treaty aimed at creating a European Monetary Union (EMU), and a single European currency, acting as a culmination of the EC’s economic goals of integration (Ross 1992; Buiter et al. 1993). The unprecedented economic interconnectedness was followed by Treaty-established fiscal criteria aimed at maintaining low inflation, exchange rates and interest rates, eliminating excesses forcing other EMU members bailing a state with economic problems. These criteria forced states to engage in fiscal adjustments through spending cuts, rather than tax increases. The neoliberal agenda of diminishing the governments’ size was translated into the Treaty’s fiscal adjustment regulations (Buiter et al. 1993), contributing to post-socialist welfare states’ reduction. The Maastricht Treaty’s goals were complicated by the critical juncture of USSR’s fall, given how the Treaty was designed at a moment of relative stability (Ross 1992). This opened up the opportunity for new states to join the

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EU, allowed for German reunification and spread neoliberal ideas in Europe, creating new possible policy trajectories. However, the Maastricht Treaty goals were designed only for current MS, without accounting for increased membership (Ross 1992). Therefore, the EU had to set up the Copenhagen Criteria, in 1993, to protect the new objectives while integrating post-socialist states.

5.3. The Copenhagen Criteria

The 1993 membership criteria were established at the European Council in Copenhagen, and could be summed up in three categories: political, economic and legislative. The political ones refer to prospective MS’s capacity to secure a democratic regime, protect the rule of law, human rights, and minorities’ rights. The economical ones account for prospective MS’s functioning of the market economy, and their capacity to cope with the EU’s market forces. The legislative criteria cover the capacity to implement the EU acquis (Grabbe 1999; Agnew 2001; Hillion 2014).

The conceptual ground covered by the criteria, ranging from democracy and rule of law to coping with being competitive, was vague, not offering a blueprint of what prospective MS needed to do to obtain membership. This was reinforced by the growing EU acquis, which imposed new legislation to be adopted by prospective MS (Grabbe 1999; Hillion 2014). The criteria developed over time and were adapted on a case-by-case basis, increasing the uncertainty in which prospective MS found themselves (Grabbe 1999; Agnew 2001; Hillion 2014). This was the “moving target problem”, as prospective MS never knew if the EU would change targets and delay accession (Hillion 2014). The criteria were expanded at the 1995 Madrid Council to mention how prospective MS had to adjust their administrative and judicial structures. The criteria were further expanded in 1999 to include the “good-neighbours” proviso, which added the idea of successful regional cooperation and peace as elements which prospective MS needed to have before accession (Hillion 2014). The EU adopted a pragmatic approach, mitigating enlargement risks and appeasing current MS that were trying to prevent future enlargement (Schimmelfennig 2003). Navigating this political dimension built support for

The Effect of Private Tutoring on Social Equality within the EU: The Case of Romania

The Effect of Private Tutoring on Social Equality

within the EU: The Case of Romania

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