Oradea - Education

Education

Oradea is one of the main education centers of Romania. The city is home to the University of Oradea, one of the largest and most modern universities in the country. There are also several private universities, one being Agora University, a modern academic institution founded in 2000. Emanuel University, a Baptist school, also exists in the city since 2002.

The traditions of higher education in Oradea, metaphorically speaking, go back to time immemorial. This year 2012 there are 232 years since the inauguration of higher education in Oradea and 48 years of continuous higher education in Oradea.

At the end of the 18th century, "a higher institution for philosophic teaching" is founded in Oradea in 1780, which was to become in 1788 the Faculty of Law, the oldest faculty not only within the Romanian borders but also in a vast region of Eastern Europe.

After 1921, all the courses at the Law Faculty were taught in Romanian. In 1923, the foundation of two theological academies gave new dimensions to the academic life in Oradea.

The Law Academy of Oradea, together with the two theological academies, was to make another step forward by integrating a faculty of letters, thus achieving the old desideratum of creating a University of Crisana in Oradea.

After a thirty-year break in the activity of the Law Academy of Oradea, on 1 October 1963, an order of the Ministry of Education established in Oradea a 3-year Pedagogic Institute meant to do away with the scarcity of teachers in secondary education. The new institution of higher education began its activity with two faculties: Philology and Mathematics-Physics, and a year later other two faculties (History-Geography and Physical Education) were added.

In May 1990 a decree of the Romanian Government established the Technical University of Oradea, later called the University of Oradea, and based on impressive traditions of academic life in the town. It was an act of scientific and cultural restoration long expected in the life of the Romanian society, a major gain of the people's Revolution of December 1989, one of the greatest Romanian achievements in Crisana after the Great Union on 1 December 1918. This is how the dream of several generations of scholars came true, clearly expressed by a historian of Oradea: "As regarding the future, the desire of all well-meant Romanians is to establish in Oradea a complete university, the lights of which will shine across the entire western border of Romania". Today, the University of Oradea is an integrated institution of higher education of this kind, comprising 18 faculties.

The mission of the University of Oradea is to train and educate on a large scale both the students and also the high education graduates, as well as to approache certain domains of science and technology at high level.

The structure of the University contains academic education, postgraduate education and scientific research.

The University of Oradea expanded itself by developing new faculties and research teams, as well as by developing certain specializations inside the existing faculties.

Inside the University of Oradea the education and research activity is developing in the area of natural and physical sciences, as well as in the area of social and human sciences, covering the following: Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Sciences of Life, Agricultural Sciences, Medical Sciences, Technological Sciences, Economical Sciences, Geography, History, Juridical Sciences and Law, Linguistics, Pedagogy, Political Sciences, Psychology, Letters and Arts, Sociology, Philosophy. The educational process is based on the curricula for long undergraduate and postgraduate studies.

One of the oldest private universities in Romania is also situated in Oradea. The Sulyok István Reform College was founded in the spring of 1990 by the Királyhágómelléki Reform Church. In 1999 the school became entirely independent from the Protestant Theology College of Cluj-Napoca and changed its name to Partium Christian University. It presently operates with 12 faculties and a student body of 1400; the language of instruction is Hungarian.