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| The baccalaureate exam in Romania |
| (2011-07-05) |
| Last updated: 2011-07-06 11:48 EET |
Less than half of the approximately 200,000 students who took the high school graduation exam in Romania failed it. In Bucharest alone, only 4 out of 10 students got passing grades, and elsewhere in the country over 20 high schools had none of their students pass. The ruling coalition and the opposition started blaming each other for the failure.
The baccalaureate exam this year caused a storm. These were the worst overall results in the last 20 years, with 45% of the total number of students getting a passing grade. Education minister, Daniel Funeriu, said that was on account of the crack down on cheating. He spoke publicly on the need to change attitudes, behavior and mentalities:
Daniel Funeriu: “I don’t expect standards to be lowered for recalculation of grades for papers that were challenged, or the exam in autumn, or any other baccalaureate exam in years to follow. It would be a capital mistake for anyone to imagine that we took a step backwards. I want to notify people who failed the exam that tomorrow, if they work hard and persevere, they can get their high school diploma”.
The minister went on to explain that the poor results were a mirror of society: “Don’t expect me to tell you that I blame any former minister, or any minister for that matter, or any political party. I think we should all blame ourselves, and admit that we should. I think we should own up to the fact that this is Romanian education as it truly is”.
The baccalaureate exam this year predictably exposed even more the tension between the ruling coalition and the opposition. The coalition claimed that political will on the part of the government saw this exam taken correctly, while the opposition claimed that the poor results were to be blamed on the government’s lack of strategy. They said that Minister Funeriu lacked vision, and that his decisions were like an operation without anesthesia.
Here is what Social Democratic Party President Victor Ponta said: “You can’t expect better results in a system in which for the last two years you made no investment, and which you have practically destroyed systematically, as the Boc government has done. Also, it is very hard to all of a sudden uphold standards that you haven’t imposed until now. If you applied these standards to a lot of politicians nowadays, politicians in major positions, you would have a foreseeable result”.
On the other hand, the Liberal Democrats, the major coalition party, say that the education system is in shambles because of the ministers put in position by the present parties in opposition. They say it is because they didn’t apply reform measures, and that resulted in the baccalaureate disaster, when it became obvious that students have no skills whatsoever. The baccalaureate exam results have obviously sparked worries regarding the future of the labor market in Romania.
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