British-Romanian University

The British-Romanian University is a private institution, a member of the Romanian National Education System. Its main objective is to form a Romanian professional elite in professions highly demanded by the Romanian economy. In this respect, we started the Business Administration Department. In our view, the Romanian economy is short of good entrepreneurial managers, capable of taking responsibilities in creating, starting and managing their own business. A too short capitalist history and a too conservative higher education system are the key factors in this shortage of good entrepreneurs. Other Romanian universities produce mainly middle managers. In the socialist economy model, "corporate" managers were in fact middle managers, since the whole country was a corporation. Thinking, creating strategies, working in a team, taking responsibilities and business risks, having visions for the future were not at all their concern. The socialist managers were very good in accomplishing just what they were told to do. We strongly believe that this managerial type is unadapted to the present economic environment, and this is an explanation for the poor performance of many Romanian companies. So, the first task of our university is to train a different kind of managers. Our university is a formative social environment, based on work and academic discipline. The students are encouraged to participate in classes. We believe that distance learning, Internet-based and other non- or remote-participative systems have a poor formative value. The presence of our students in classrooms is automatically recorded, based on their personal identity electronic card. Their participation in classes will be reflected automatically in their grades, to ensure the minimum condition of the formative process: "in order to benefit from a formative education system, you have to participate first". Our university encourages students to work in teams and to develop communication abilities by frequent practical exercises. In our view, the need for this approach is even more important in Romania, where the tradition in education at all levels is based on individualism and competition.