THE ROMANIAN HIGHER EDUCATION IN A KNOWLEDGE-BASED SOCIETY

In the context of the 21st century's topical challenges regarding innovation, knowledge, learning, quality, transparency, decisional autonomy, sustainable development and pro-activity in identifying and managing resources, most countries are engaged, to different extents and with various results, in promoting a knowledge-based societal evolution. The new education and training model specific to the knowledge-based society has to conceive new means to offer to learners new competences, abilities and skills, a new pattern of behavior and a new organizational culture. In the context of this new society, all societal actors have to become stakeholders in the learning process. This is not an option ut a mandatory condition for surviving and becoming competitive in a globalized economy. There is a broad consensus in the academic and non-academic area on the need for a structural reform of the Romanian education and training system, but there is still a lack of clarity on the type and the depths of the reform. The present paper explores some features of Romanian higher education system, summarises the characteristics of conventional education and highlights an emerging view of learning.