THE MINISTRY OF THE ADMINISTRATION AND OF THE INTERIOR
THE NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS’ SCHOOL FOR FIREFIGHTING
AND CIVIL PROTECTION “PAVEL ZAGANESCU”
A VIEW UPON THE INSTITUTIONAL STRUCTURES OF THE
ROMANIAN INSTITUTIONS FOR EMERGENCY SITUATIONS
The contemporary issues regarding the instruction of the modern
professionals, presented at a large scale, could be seen as a quite interesting subject, for
all these concerned with the improvement of the nowadays living standards related to
the world of the near future.
The problems coping with the instructional goals are studied at present in close
connection with the problems of the contemporary world which is subjected to swift
changes in structures, special requests and endeavours as regards the informational
“booming” and the intensive development of the communicational systems.
Closely connected to the organizational and, we daresay, to the philosophical
aspects of the continuous and permanent education, the instructional process starts
right along with human birth an becomes a life long principal dimension of his
existence. The instruction, seen in its magnitude, is meant to allow every individual to
keep up his existence and to act for a better life.
In this respect, a highly qualified management of human resources, within the
General Inspectorate of an Emergency Situations has consistently promoted the
elaboration and support of an integrated and coherent conception regarding the system
of continuous and permanent education and training of the professionals. This
approach has imposed a special view upon the elaboration of activity programmes for
short, medium and long terms.
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The evolution and development within the social structures bring along a
different and complex degree concerning the contents which are to be implemented
and taken for being granted in the near future.
Moreover, at present, the stress is laid upon the capability of developing the
learning techniques in order to keep up fit for the requests of the continuous and
permanent instruction.
As concerns the need of changing and the adjustment in accordance with it
people ought to undergo a series of processes leading to the building of a new
personality and consequent beheviour.
Nevertheless, this process is tough to be coped with, due to the inner resistance
to changes, according to the modern mentalities. The change of the skills and
customary habits highlights new efforts which should be taken for gaining self-control
and efficiency.
As we discuss upon the newly founded General Inspectorate of Emergency
Situations, it must be pointed out that it highlights the merger of Military Fire Corps
and the Civil Protection Commandment.
The newly merged Inspectorate, functioning within a laboring environment
which has been consistently changing since its foundation and the capacity for
combatant values, set forth in accordance with the E.C. standards, brings up the
necessity of acquiring the latest methods and combatant techniques in line in order to
fulfill the goals.
In this context, the customary educational and training system should be
brought up to the European Standards in order to be offered the suppleness necessary
for the continuous adjustment in accordance with the worldwide professional criteria.
At present, the coordinators of the basic training and perfectioning
programmes must comply with the role of “conductors” of the activities, all this
requiring enlarged responsibilities due to the fact the nobody should ever allow failures
in dealing with emergency situations.
The instructional systems must modify their conceptions upon their own
specific activities, as concerns the future developments, in order to adequately train
these who are charged with professional matters, having an ultimately goal in building
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up a real modern perspective and attitude towards the practical fulfillment of the
knowledge in line with the professional targets.
As concerns the educational institution within the General Inspectorate of
Emergency Situations, which are the basis of the professional recruitment of the highly
specialized personnel, we may say that the didactical process ought to have, as a main
goal, the professional and practical formation of the students seen as the basis of
acquiring competence related to the combatant values.
At last, it must provide specific data that can the used as a prognosis of the
careers with in the General Inspectorate of Emergency Situations.
In this respect, the educational institutions which deals with the initial and
continuous instruction of the professional personnel, has had to re-define the missions
and the structures dealing with the training of the personnel, their objectives and their
goals.
This has been compulsory, otherwise the General Inspectorate of Emergency
Situations will have never been able to benefit out of the specialized personnel capable
to cope with current realities of the modern structures.
Moreover, there is also compulsory to find the proper ways of adapting the
mentalities, as well as the behaviours, of the professionals to the new European
Standards in this domain. The necessity of these changes is a benchmark of the civil
society which requires high quality performance from the firefighters.
The process of changing customary way of seeing this specific career copes
with the multicultural integration with a view to the new role of the Public Services,
subjected the citizen’s needs.
Thus, in the long run, the most difficult task to be accomplished is to work
hard and efficiently in adapting the customary mentalities of the former professionals
to the European Standards.
This is why a solid stress is laid upon the educational and institutional issues
seen from the standpoint of the continuous and permanent institutional and selftraining of the professionals within the General Inspectorate of Emergency Situations.
The instructional and educational processes provided for the entire
professional to be personnel within the General Inspectorate of Emergency Situations
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take for granted the didactical background concerned with the implementation of the
principles which cope with general cultural information, thus establishing the further
studies in specialized curricula.
By all means, all the above mentioned didactical processes and contents
should provide the necessary skills for training the “trainers-to-be”.
More than ever, discussing upon a society which looks for a new and modern
and European identity, the schooling system and its representatives need solid
authority, professional training and a clear-cut view upon the future of the national
education.
The basic principles regarding the fulfillment of the initial and continuous
training should focuss on the individual, on his potential and possible development,
taking into account the most reliable resource of a high-performing management.
We can also specify another top-priority objective of the General Inspectorate
of Emergency Situations strategy: the accomplishment of a solid and a real diagnosis
of the training programs as a basis for an efficient prognosis of the final product: the
highly-performing professional firefighter involved in the field-ops.
The general system, regarding the initial and continuous training of the
personnel within the General Inspectorate of Emergency Situations has been
ceaselessly transformed and adapted to the European Standards, although a real
challenge is at stake at present.
We cah shortly ask a few short questions, according to the mainframe of the
instructional system of the General Inspectorate of Emergency Situations:
“Who may be enlisted as a professor or as an instructor in the system of
instructional formation?”
“How do we manage to attract the youth in the field of coping with the
emergency situations?”
“How is accomplished and which is the feed-back response of the operational
units during the schooling time?”
The effort laid towards the integration of the Ministry of the Administration
and of the Interior within those belonging to the European Community has set up the
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initiation and the fulfillment of several programmes concerning the institutional
training management along with the continuous instruction of the personnel.
Confronted with daily necessities and social commands, both the operational
and the managing personnel, face the challenges to react properly and efficiently for
the building up of specialized professionals able to cope with the ever changing
missions and goals.
According to the above mentioned issues, the structural branches of the
instructional system, concerned with the Emergency Situations, have responsibilities in
preparing the civil society, the working people, the Emergency Medical Services,
along with the executive managers and the professional personnel for the crisis
management, field operations and specific interventions. The representative
institutions, enlisted as follows, have certain competences:
The General Inspectorate for Emergency Situations:
- elaborates documents and informs upon plans and training programmes
taking part in the coordination of their accomplishment;
- establishes the training modules and their duration;
- organizes courses and meetings;
The Fire Academy for Emergency Situations:
- provides the basic instruction for highly trained specialists ranking as
officers;
The Non-Commissioned Officers’ School for Firefighting and Civil Protection
“Pavel Zaganescu”:
- organizes and carries on initial and continuous training courses for the
non-commissioned technical officers and for the personnel charged with
field operations regarding Emergency Situations;
The National Centre for Emergency Situations Management:
- organizes the initial training, the qualification, the improvement of the
skills or specialization of the team-leaders involved in the Emergency
Situations;
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- organizes the focussed instruction of the executive personnel of the
structures subordinated to the G.I.E.S.;
Emergency Situations Regional Training Centers:
- organizes continuous training courses for the prefects and sub-prefects,
presidents and vice-presidents of the County Council, City Mayors, the
City Vice-Mayors, the secretary-generals of the City Councils and
prefectures, the secretaries of the local councils, the chiefs of the public
institutions and of the commercial societies, of the economical agents,
of the private and volunteer services;
- provides technical assistance and special counselling for different
institutions and economical agents;
The National Centre for Fire Security and Civil Protection
In order to achieve the goal of its activity, according to the law, the National
Centre for Fire Security and Civil Protection (N.C.F.S.C.P.) has its principal tasks, as
follows:
- organizes, as to the law, special courses for initial and continuous instruction of
the Firefighting personnel and, at any request, courses for professional
preparation, professional competence assessment and certification for jobs
regarding the Firefighting and Civil Protection, as well as to the technical staff
with tasks having a view to the fire protection within the ministries, the central
administration authorities and for other public institutions, autonomous
administration centres and commercial societies;
- performs nation-wide studies, researches and experiments concerning the
Firefighting and the Civil Protection and, collaborates, in consequence, with the
Project and Research Institutes or with specific economical agents;
- performs special studies regarding types of risks dealt with according to the
competence of the General Inspectorate For Emergency Situation (G.I.E.S.);
- ensures, by means of laboratories and special training fields, the research upon
the fire resistance of the building products and of other materials, the study, the
testing and the experimenting of the products, methods and equipments used for
the Fire Civil Protection;
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- offers, at any request, technical assistance and specialized consultancy for any
those individual or institution involved in the usage of the products, procedures
and equipment assigned to the Fire and Civil Protection;
- certifies the juridical individuals to deal with the thermo-protective and fire
proof construction, with their control, maintenance and repairing of the special
vehicles, outfits, installations and of several other technical means used for fire
prevention, as well as for the development of different other activities for Fire
and Civil protection, as the law concerns;
- collaborates in the fulfillment, as to the competences, of common programmes
involving professional association and non/governamental organisms, profiled as
to cope with the Fire and Civil Protection;
- coordinates practical attempts and demonstrative actions within the special
training fields and within the experimental grounds of the professional
Emergency Services, subjected to the General Inspectorate For Emergency
Situation, in agreement with the support of their Commanders and in
collaboration with other institutions and economical agents;
- participates in the elaboration of regulations, haotion-wide codes and technical
standards, due to their competences;
- implements, at any request, technical examinations and takes part along with law
enforcement organisation, in the examination of the fire generating causes, of the
fire generating circumstances and in any other sort of emergency situations,
according to its competence.
The County Inspectorates (Bucharest City) for Emergency Situations
-
organizes and carries on the professional training of the professional
services;
-
coordinates and supports the training of the public works, pupils and
students;
-
organizes and supports special training activities for coping with
emergency
situations
that
include
the
unemployed
or
non-
institutionalized individuals;
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-
organizes and carries on the specific training of the private and
volunteer emergency services chiefs as well as for the operational
formations.
TRAINING MODULES
The training modules are established in accordance with the personnel enlisted
within the Emergency Situations field operations, as follows:
 Senior – staff training;
 5 to 25 days off-duty courses;
 Public alarming exercises;
 Special field operations and exercises;
 Technical assistance and specialized consultancy;
 Studies, research and experiments;
 Conferencies and symposiums;
 Practical sessions;
 Methodological instructions;
 Individual studies.
Scientific Research and Consultancy
It is generally developed within the entire training structure but especially within
the Fire Academy for Emergency Situations, as follows:
 Collective agreement research (research grants, international research
programs);
 Individual research for the master’s degree preparation, special studies,
articles for scientific meetings and special registers, elaboration of books,
laboratory works a.s.o;
 Technical assistance and consultancy for institutions and economical
agents.
All these structures can offer researching activities as follows:
- fire prevention and extinction;
- building resistance against fire in equipments and installations ;
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- environmental protection;
- reliability of the signaling installations for fire prevention;
- ventilating systems for major fires;
- studies upon the extinguishing water flows;
- identification and analysis of the fire risks;
- modern systems and techniques for salvation and fire extinction;
- legal regulations agreement according to the European view upon the
emergency situations;
There has been a major interest in the last years for the training and the
instruction of the personnel charged with attributions in the line of emergency
situations, as a consequence and, by all means, as a prognosis of the integration process
with the similar Emergency Structures.
The main goal of these efforts is the international cooperation put into practice
during the mutual experience communities setup for specialists, teaching staff,
students, which has tried to establish “twinning” programmes dealing with the
problems specific for the professional firefighters.
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