You might have looked for international schools in Cluj, and found two. Or maybe you thought you found four, and discovered one was online and one had closed down.
In any case, it isn’t easy to start a school in Romania. First, you need the necessary accreditation. That part alone is too complex and difficult to explain here.
Getting accreditation from the right people will also determine which staff you use, and many other standards set by your accreditation partners. (Which ones can you use? That is another can of worms.)
Then, you need a suitable building.
Then, your neighbours need to agree that the building can be used as a school.
Sounds simple, right?
Well, the building alone, in Cluj, could cost many thousands of pounds a month.
What happens if you don’t meet the standards? Normally, you just get closed down. And if you lie?
We saw another recent story about an “Illegal Daycare” from another country. Its clickbait title (it is aimed at Israelis) was “90 Israeli Children Found in Illegal Daycare Run by Iranians in Thailand.”
Basically, the owers did not file the correct paperwork for their daycare. The foreign workers did not have work permits, or at least were not qualified for the work they were doing. The daycare was licensed, but only to teach 18 children, and there were more than a hundred there. Also, while the place was licensed to be a kindgergarten, workers may have been teaching children “up to the age of 12.”
Naturally, the police raided the compound, or school, during class time and arrested the staff and owners in front of the children.
Basically, it was a creche pretending to be an international school.
We hear that it is much easier to start an after school daycare in Cluj. But, we advise against any exaggerations in your claims.
Restaurants have been closed down when a roach was spotted (at least temporarily, and fined). Building built without permits have been demolished.
While employers might sometimes get away with exaggerating the benefits of a job, the kinds of people who consider sending their children to International Schools in Cluj tend to be among the most powerful. You don’t want to mess with them.
But there is another warning for expats and foreigners here. Don’t send your children to just any school you find advertised. Check the accreditation first.
There were over 100 children at that school, at least 89 could be classified as “expats” who probably had no relation to the staff. (Maybe the others were from other expat communities.) In that narrow age group, that had to be a lot of naive parents who sent their children to a school without doing their research.
While the news story seemed to make a mountain out of a molehill (no one was hurt or seemed to be in danger, it just seemed the boss neglected to do the paperwork), it exposes a weakness of expats these days. Busy people just assume that any business running is valid.
Other illegal businesses we’ve found, and thought about reporting on, include illegal restaurants (or under-licensed restaurants) in Portugal. Not only did the owners lack the necessary paperwork to reside in Portugal, the kitchens were found to be unsanitary and contain many fire hazards.
When approached by police, they pretended that the guests were their “friends.” I guess the old saying, “a stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet” probably went to the chef’s head. But the guests did not know the owners.
Beware that restaurants and schools, and other businesses, that seem a bit hidden, are not normal in Europe. There is the occasional hairdresser or Xerox off the beaten path, but you can’t just run a school or a restaurant out of a spare room.
