Romanian President Klaus Iohannis signed on Friday the appointment of Ecaterina Andronescu as new minister of education, the Presidential Office said in a statement.
Andronescu’s predecessor, Valentin Popa was forced to resign by Liviu Dragnea, President of the ruling Social-Democratic Party (PSD) after a controversial government regulation that teaching the Romanian state language in minority schools can only be performed by native Romanian teachers – contrary to previous practice that permitted ethnic minority teachers to also teach Romanian. His post has been vacant for almost two months.
Andronescu (70), an engineer and university professor by training, is old PSD hand – she had previously served as Minister of Education between 2000 and 2012 for three times during various PSD-governments.
