Summer Exams in Romania
The period of exams in Romania is in full swing. The national evaluation exams have ended and now its time for the Baccalaureate and the faculty admission exams
Corina Cristea, 26.06.2017, 13:58
The period of exams in Romania is in full swing. The national evaluation exams have ended and now its time for the Baccalaureate and the faculty admission exams
Each year, the beginning of summer marks the start of the period of exams for hundreds of thousands of pupils and students. The period of exams started with the 8th graders who, one week ago, sat for their first exams, whose stake was a place in a good high school. Their distribution was made according to an established algorithm. According to the Education Ministry officials, starting this year, the grade point average in the national evaluation exams has a stronger weight in the exam for admission to the 9th grade. It has risen from 75% to 80%, while the general grade point average for the secondary school years, namely from the 5th to the 8th grade, accounts for only 20% in the overall grade.
Monday, June 26, marks the start of the Baccalaureate exam in Romania. More than 135 thousand candidates have this year enrolled for the Baccalaureate written examinations of the June-July exam session. The session started with the Romanian language and literature exam. On Tuesday candidates will take the exam testing their mother tongue skills, while Wednesday they will take a compulsory test according to the high school profile. The last written exam in this summer session, a test of the students choice according to the school profile and specialization, is scheduled for Friday. Access of candidates to the more than 400 exam centres will be made based on a valid ID card, including their photo, and any attempt to copy in the exams will entail the students elimination, the Education Ministry officials have warned.
According to statistics, in the 2016-2017 school and academic year, the total number of pupils and students stood at almost 3.6 million, down by 45 thousand as compared to the previous year. The data made public by the National Institute of Statistics also show that the number of graduates in 2016 was by 10% smaller than in 2015 and vocational education was the only field in which the number of students increased, although the number of pupils who choose vocational education is much lower per the total number of school pupils.
Also the average ratio between the number of pupils and students and that of teachers was one teacher to 15 pupils or students. In the higher education system, the most sought-after specializations were business, administration and law as well as engineering, especially construction engineering.
In another development, last week, the Education Ministry, the Foreign Ministry and the Ministry for the Romanians Abroad approved, by common order, the methodologies regulating the schooling procedures for the Romanians abroad enrolled in the pre-tertiary education system and the higher state education system in Romania in the 2017-2018 school year. 1,800 places have been allotted for them in the pre-tertiary education system while for the higher education system they have 3,705 places available for bachelor studies, 2,000 for MA studies and residency studies. (Edited by D. Vijeu)