Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century and its Role in the Advancement of Romania

The text presented below is an edited version of the Address delivered by His Excellency Ion Iliescu, the President of Romania, at the opening ceremony of the UNESCO-CEPES International Jubilee Conference on "Higher Education in the Twenty-First Century: Its Role and Contribution to Our Common Advancement", Bucharest, 6-8 September 2002. President Iliescu evokes, herein, the shared democratic values of UNESCO-CEPES and its host country, Romania, and of their shared belief in the benefic effects of the promotion of education, culture, and science. Regarding higher education, Romania recognizes the crucial importance of its role in the development of the knowledge society of the Twenty-First Century, the importance of university education for the training of young people, and the need to develop Romanian higher education according to the norms of the Bologna Process and of European integration.