Turn of Events at a Teachers' Training School

One of the most spectacular buildings in Sfântu Gheorghe, next to the Székely National Museum, draws attention to itself. The building of today's Mihai Viteazul National College was erected after the purchase of the land in 1907, based on plans by Zsigmond Herczeg. Built between 1908 and 1910 on the site of the former Wellenreiter brewery, in the former town park, near the former border between the town and the village of Simeria, the two-storey, two-block institution originally housed the teachers' training school established in 1899. 

After the change of empire following the Trianon decision, it was converted into a Romanian-language teachers' training college in 1920 and a youth training and education centre between 1938 and 1940. After the decision taken in Vienna, it was returned to its original purpose, as the Reformed Teachers' Training Institute and Lyceum until 1944. "Nothing shows more clearly that Sfântu Gheorghe was the most suitable location for the new Reformed teachers' training school in Transylvania than the fact that, although the director of the institute did not take over the organisational work until September, the first class of the Lyceum soon filled to capacity", the school's yearbook states.

After the Second World War, the school was a teachers' training school until 1948, then an officers' school, and from 1961 onwards a secondary school. Since 1990, it has been considered the stronghold of Romanian-language education in Sfântu Gheorghe.

Samu Csinta