Cemortan Voloșin Stela

About

Stela Cemortan was born on November 13, 1941, in the village of Niorcani, Soroca district, into a family of intellectuals, being the daughter of the local school director. She began her teaching career in 1959 as a Romanian language and literature teacher at the Soroca Pedagogical School, a position she held until 1975. Her academic training was rigorous: she studied at the Faculty of Philology and History of the State University of Chișinău (1957-1962), and between 1977-1981 she was a doctoral student at the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences in Moscow, successfully defending her thesis for the degree of Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences in 1982. In 1996, she obtained the title of Doctor Habilitatus in Pedagogy at the "M. Lomonosov" University in Moscow, and in 2000 she was promoted to the rank of university professor, becoming the first Doctor Habilitatus in Pedagogy in the Republic of Moldova. Throughout her career, Stela Cemortan held important positions in Moldovan educational institutions: inspector at the Ministry of Education, head of laboratory at the Institute of Educational Sciences, professor at the Institute for Teacher Professional Development, and at the "Ion Creangă" State Pedagogical University in Chișinău. She was a scientific advisor to the National Council for Accreditation and Attestation and coordinated several psychopedagogical research projects on the socialization of preschool children. Her professional activity focused on developing conceptual and normative documents for preschool education and general schooling, contributing significantly to the creation of the Curriculum for Early Childhood and Preschool Education (ages 1-7) in 2007. She published over 250 scientific works, monographs, textbooks, and teaching materials, and in 2015, the posthumous volume of memoirs "Hand in Hand with Hope" was released. For her remarkable contribution to the development of education in the Republic of Moldova, Stela Cemortan was awarded the titles of Eminent of Public Education of the Republic of Moldova (1974) and Eminent of Public Education of the USSR (1977), the "Civic Merit" Medal (1996), the "Labor Glory" Order (2002), and the "Dimitrie Cantemir" Medal of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova. She had a devoted family, being a mother of two daughters and a grandmother to several granddaughters and great-granddaughters who inherited educational values and respect for culture. Professor Stela Cemortan passed away on April 18, 2014, leaving behind a vast educational legacy and a model of rigor, dedication, and professionalism in the field of pedagogy.