The year 2024 was the year of great surprises in Education. I also checked a premiere: the rescheduling of the Baccalaureate, which will start in the winter. The detention room, the banning of mobile phones in schools, but also the introduction of a new type of school scholarships are among the most important events that took place.
Starting this year, students are no longer allowed to use mobile phones in class. Archive
Premiere: The baccalaureate has been rescheduled. Exams start in winter
This year we marked a first in the Romanian education system: The baccalaureate has been rescheduled and the first skills tests will be held in the winter. More precisely, between January 27 and February 7.
As for the written tests, they will be given in the summer, but one month earlier than before. Specifically, the high school graduates will take the Romanian Language, Mathematics, History, Geography, Biology, Physics, Chemistry tests between June 10-16. Entries for the skills exam take place between December 16-20, 2024, and each exam will span three days.
Another proposal that was adopted and which concerns the 2025 Baccalaureate exam is the possibility for students to view their papers after receiving the initial grade, but before submitting appeals. This change came as a result of requests from students and parents who wanted to know whether or not it is really necessary to file an appeal, whether or not they have a real chance of getting their grade increased. The written tests take place between June 10-16, and the final results, after appeals, will be published at the end of the month.
Banning cell phones in schools
Starting this year, the law banning the use of mobile phones in schools by students came into force. With one exception: these devices must be requested by teachers and used for educational purposes in class. Specifically, students are required to leave their mobile phones in special boxes at the beginning of classes. They can only use them during breaks. Ligia Deca stated in September that schools have the possibility to partially or totally ban phones. Minister Ligia Deca also wanted to mention the sanctions that students risk if they do not follow the rules imposed by the school management. “There are a series of sanctions in the regulation that go from a verbal or written warning to the most serious sanction, which is expulsion. Depending on the seriousness of the act, an appropriate sanction is applied”, the minister declared then.
Establishment of detention rooms for students who disrupt classes
The detention room was by far one of the most controversial proposals from the Ministry of Education, a decision that inflamed spirits especially among parents and students. However, it must be admitted that even the teachers did not take kindly to this measure of punishment. And the school principals weren’t happy either. Among their reasons were the lack of teachers to supervise the children, the lack of space in the schools, the fact that reading or other educational activities that were to be practiced in those rooms should not be seen as a punishment. In the end, due to the pressure created, the decision that, initially, should have been implemented mandatorily at the level of each school, became optional. Minister Deca came out again saying that it is up to the schools if they will set up such a room and up to the teachers if they will resort to such a punishment.
Introducing the Resilience Scholarship
At the end of June, the government approved a draft Emergency Ordinance through which it introduced resilience grants, worth 300 lei per month. The first 30% of students in a class who had an annual average of at least 7.00 and at most 9.50 at the end of the last school year benefit from the resilience scholarship. Resilience grants are also awarded to students with oncological and/or chronic conditions who have attended school, for a period of more than 4 weeks, in the “Hospital School” or at home, in the school year following their return to the educational unit where they were previously registered, then sent to the Government. Also, in the situation where students accumulate 10 or more unexcused absences in a month, they do not receive the excellence, resilience, merit, social scholarship, respectively the technological scholarship, as the case may be, for that month”.
Referendum to prevent drug use in schools
“Do you agree that the mayor’s office of Bucharest should finance and implement an education program for health and prevention of drug use in all schools in Bucharest?” It is the third question answered by the residents of the capital in the referendum organized by the mayor Nicușor Dan on November 24. The question, to which the citizens of Bucharest answered “Yes”, puts on the back burner the eternal problem of the consumption and trafficking of narcotics in the halls and high schools of the capital. This question was proposed to the PSD general counsel, Nicușor Dan explained, after the CGMB approved the holding of the referendum. The question, however, experts believe, was an absolutely useless one. “I wonder who would say that they do not want the eradication of this phenomenon from schools, what parent, what healthy, normal person would refuse the implementation of such a program?”, asked Cosmin Andreica, the president of the Europol union, at the time.
