The Minister of Education, Daniel David, gives the reply to the president of the Romanian Academy, Ioan Aurel Pop, in the debate of high school subjects, saying that we have the chance to end, finally, from a centralized education system, to a airy, balanced and truly Relevant to students.
Minister of Education, Daniel David. Source: Mediafax
The official’s reaction comes in the context in which the president of the Romanian Academy has accused a “New offensive against history and geography”saying that the Ministry of Education removed from the common trunk the two Cinderella of school subjects, “with the unlikely possibility that the school can repair this injustice. ”
Ion Aurel Pop accuses the fact that the history discipline was punished and removed from the program of the last two high school classes to the detriment of modernist subjects. “What so much Romanian, history, Latin, geography?”, Asks rhetorically, but also ironically, the academic. “We only live in the era of globalization and digitalization. So the school would be meant to teach children and adolescents only the strictly related to digitalization, a bit of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology (the number of hours, but not too much, have been reduced in their case. it would have been crying to heaven and because the parents would have revolted). The rest of the hours are to be intended for practical skills, skills, individual and public life rules ”.
Minister David’s reaction came promptly and was tailor -made. It starts with the address, on your personal blog, a question: “I ask the president of the Romanian Academy if we like how the current education system treats our children and areas related to national identity/culture. Me, no (and I know that he)! I look at national and international tests and I am extremely worried when I often see percentages over 40% below or on the limit of functionality. I look around and see too many children who do not speak Romanian correctly, they get bored of our literature classics, they have pseudo -scientific theories, they make gross confusion in the country’s geography, Latin becomes the subject of irony, etc. These, by the fact that they are an unacceptable risk that affects the national culture, become even national security problems ”.
Daniel David: “Our mission is to rethink the system for the benefit of children”
The minister warns that our mission is to rethink the system that generated this risk. “I would like to see more airy and relevant content, with means of teaching and attractive manuals, to encourage and enthusiast them, not to bore our children, when we talk about the aspects related to the identity/culture. national ”. The minister believes that this is this aspect and only then the number of disciplines and hours. However, the minister continues, in order to reach this airy and flexible model, a redistribution of the study disciplines designed in the basis of decentralization of the Romanian school was needed. “I bet in the case of disciplines/hours on a distribution of responsibility between centralization (decisions imposed by the ministry) and decentralization (decisions at the levels of schools and/or students) – without losing hours. I will support such a good model. I look forward to it, as part of the consultation/debate! ”.
Daniel David reminds the current context of Romanian education: a system in which Pseudoștiță has become a national security problem. “As I have treated so far the sciences has not worked. It is an opportunity to restart in this area, so we do not lose it. I encourage professional specialists and societies to make such rational proposals, and my support will be there. ”
In conclusion, says the minister, we have the chance to make the transition “From a system of education in which much and stupid is taught (we have among the most hours/year between the OECD countries), very centralized (with few options at school level and/or students), which, beyond the fact that it is Oso (it is based on models and some textbooks from 2004), even by the results generated, it often puts at risk to children and society, one in which they teach more airy and relevant, well and with balance between centralization and decentralization.
In this process, the minister urges us to think first of all in children. “No one thinks of them in these discussions. The official said that the turning of the real needs of the students will not be done to the detriment of the teachers’ needs. “F.But let’s leave the teachers aside and not close the school for parents or society. I invite you not to lose this opportunity and I look forward to concrete proposals, especially since I want the final version to have a broadest support in the community, as it is normal in this phase of consultation/debate ”.
