The results of Romanian 4th grade students who took part in the TIMSS test last year place us in 6th place in Europe and 12th in the world in Mathematics. But let’s not be too happy because the performance of the 8th grade students in this subject is far below expectations. At the European level, we are in 13th place, and at the world level, we occupy the 19th place. At first glance, you wouldn’t say that we are doing badly. On closer inspection, however, things are dramatic: the huge difference between the results of the two generations is a major problem. Because, as the numbers show, Romanian students, instead of progressing, devolve from year to year.
TIMSS testing takes place every four years. Archive
At TIMSS 2023, Romania participated with both 8th grade and 4th grade students. The average score obtained by students in primary education was 542 points, and this result places us in Mathematics in 6th place in Europe, below Ireland (546 points) and above the Netherlands (537 points). Basically, our students rank in the area of the intermediate level of knowledge, very close to the next performance threshold, the threshold we would have reached if we had obtained 550 points.
As for the students of the 8th grade, they occupied a much lower position in the ranking in Mathematics. In Europe we are on the 13th place, and in the world on the 19th place. The children obtained 496 points, an increase compared to the TIMSS 2019 edition, when they obtained only 479 points.
However, the difference between the performance of primary and secondary school students is very large. So big that it cannot be overlooked. What are the reasons for this involution? Marian Staș, an expert in education, comes up with the answer: the ill-conceived framework plans for the gymnasium.
“The heart of the problem has two big rooms that help it work: the curriculum model, so the framework plans, and the performance of teachers to execute that curriculum model as it should. Obviously, all this is corroborated with the imposture, cynicism, incompetence, poorly thought-out political calculation of the decision-makers. With the ministers of education in the lead, with the secretaries of state in the lead, with the prime ministers in the lead. People who didn’t really care about school.”
Marian Staș: “Adrian, you didn’t have Courage!”
Marian Staș refers to the period 2015-2016, when the Minister of Education at the time, Adrian Curaj, tried the sea with his finger, but got scared and backed out. “For the gymnasium, a framework plan was then ticked off just so that someone could say that they had done something. It didn’t matter how well or how poorly thought out it was. It was implemented and life went on. But then a solution could have been found, and if that solution had been implemented we would not have reached where we are today. But they didn’t have the courage to put it into practice because they were all stuck in this one-plan, syndicalist and communist paradigm,” continued Marian Staș.
At that time, Minister Adrian Curaj met a team of education specialists to think about the framework plans for the gymnasium. Among them, the academician Solomon Marcus, Radu Gologan, Marian Staș, Oana Moraru, Ștefan Vlaston – people with unconventional, “out of the box” thinking. “We had come there to evaluate the variants of framework plans that the Institute of Education Sciences had put on the table. There were three of them, one more communist than the other. Obviously, sparks flew, the two schools of thought collided. We asked the minister to withdraw the three framework plans because they were all equally communist”.
The education experts gathered at the consultations also came up with a solution: they proposed the implementation of two framework plans based on the principle of pleasing both the goat and the cabbage. “I told them: give two, three options for the schools to choose from. For example, more conservative schools should implement your plan, and other schools should be able to design their own curriculum model and framework plan. This is what the pilot schools are doing now”Marian Staș also specified.
“They will bite the dust with their teeth if they don’t do what they have to do”
But they were not taken into account. “The minister ignored our recommendations and did whatever he saw fit. And here, 10 years later, are the results of this framework plan. Clearly what has happened now at TIMSS is one of the direct effects of a poorly tailored framework plan. Because this framework plan also generated appropriate school programs”.
Now it has been proven that from primary school to secondary school, children rather fool themselves. “I’m getting worse and worse for two fairly objective reasons: poorly tailored framework plan and a questionable performance of the teachers. Inappropriate for these times”. Tthe changes, says Marian Staș, are at the system level. “Teachers must function in a different way, be tailored in a different way, trained in a different way, and the curriculum model and framework plan must be thought of fundamentally differently”.
We asked Marian Staș if he has any hope in the decisions of the future Government, in the decisions of the minister who will come to the helm of Education, and the specialist answered that there would be some chance that something will move for the better. “The margin of frustration, anger and public revolt is so intense that I believe it will put urgent and enormous pressure on everyone in the Government. Everyone has their eye on Education like a bottle. And they will bite the dust with their teeth if they don’t do what they have to do. My belief is that the margin for wiggle, maneuvering and handling will be much narrower.” Marian Staș also said.
The TIMSS study is carried out by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Performance and takes place once every four years. Within this research, the competences of Mathematics and Science (Biology, Physics, Chemistry) among students are comparatively analyzed. In Romania, the study was carried out by the University of Bucharest with funding from the Ministry of Education.
