Back to school

After a well-deserved summer holiday, over 2.3 million children on Monday returned to school and kindergarten. The Romanian Education Ministry has prepared several changes including some related to the Baccalaureate exam which will start earlier as of this school year. More precisely, high school graduates will take the oral exams in February, during the 2nd semester, and not in June as has happened so far.

Roxana Vasile, 11.09.2017, 12:40

After a well-deserved summer holiday, over 2.3 million children on Monday returned to school and kindergarten. The Romanian Education Ministry has prepared several changes including some related to the Baccalaureate exam which will start earlier as of this school year. More precisely, high school graduates will take the oral exams in February, during the 2nd semester, and not in June as has happened so far.

Also, teachers will have the possibility to check the papers of candidates taking the national assessment and Baccalaureate exams online, from their homes. The Ministry officials have forbidden all auxiliary teaching materials. These are to be revised and have to pass through a new and complex authorization procedure, following the setting up of methodological norms by a commission made up of representatives of the Education Ministry, the education trade unions, and the parents and students associations.

The education law also stipulates that 15 is the optimal number of children in a kindergarten class, 20 in a primary school class and 25 in a secondary and high school class. This is actually the number of students to be found in all European education systems. 36 children in a class, as has been the case in Romania so far, coupled with an overcrowded school curriculum and controversial textbooks, have contributed, in time, to the failure of the education system.

This situation has also been reflected in the latest PISA international test (Program for International Student Assessment): Romania is ranked 48th out of 72 countries in terms of “children who hate going to school. Childrens reluctance to go to school is also due to the weak motivation of teachers who have very low salaries. This has created a paradoxical situation, in which people without calling or not very well prepared have been hired as teachers. And things dont seem to get better soon, as new problems are emerging. For instance, this year, 5th graders have not received all their textbooks and the Education Ministry officials say the textbooks will be ready only in November.

Also, in the rural areas, there are many schools that have not received all necessary authorizations and supplies. The school buildings have not been refurbished, they do not have running water, toilets are in the schoolyard and the local authorities have preferred closing down the schools instead of refurbishing them.

Attending the beginning of the new school year at a famed Bucharest-based high school, Gheorghe Sincai National College, President Klaus Iohannis reiterated what became a leitmotif of the past years, namely that it seems that some people keep being taken by surprise each year, at the beginning of a new school year.

Each government shrugs the situation off and points an accusatory finger to the previous government. But that is not the solution to the problem. According to the Romanian President, who has been a teacher himself, the Education Law should stop being a puzzle in which the pieces are continually being changed, which undermines the unitary character of the system. Building an educated Romania cannot be achieved without a predictable education system focused on students. (Translated by L. Simion, edited by D. Vijeu)