A student from Mureș in a wheelchair encountered difficulties even on the day of the first written test of the Baccalaureate, after access to the initial examination center proved impossible. He was moved to another educational facility, where he started the exam later and received the reserve subjects.
The day when thousands of high school graduates entered the examination halls for the first written test of the Baccalaureate, the Romanian language test, started with problems for a high school student from Mureș county. Arriving at the exam center organized at the Agricultural High School in Târgu-Mureș, the student, who moves in a wheelchair, could not enter the building to take the exam.
His family recounted the incident on social media, stating that their son could not enter the classroom because the ramp at the entrance to the high school was followed by several steps, and the movement with the wheelchair could not be done safely. The parents considered the situation to be a case of discrimination and requested the intervention of the authorities.
After assessing the situation, the County Baccalaureate Commission decided to move the candidate to another exam center that had adapted access for people with disabilities. As the subjects had already been distributed in all the centers in the country, the Ministry of Education approved the use of the reserve variant.
The student only started the exam at 1:00 p.m., several hours after the other candidates.
The Mureș County School Inspectorate, for its part, reported that the student had been assigned to a room on the ground floor, but the difficulties arose on the morning of the exam, when it was found that the access ramp could not be used safely, considering the cumulative weight of the student and the wheelchair.
The representatives of the inspectorate state that the problem was aggravated by the fact that the educational unit of origin did not transmit all the information regarding the candidate’s specific needs.
“Unfortunately, the educational unit of origin did not communicate the seriousness of the situation and the specific needs of the student. This information was not known even to the management of the educational unit that organized the examination center, and even less to the chairman of the committee in the baccalaureate center, who had no way of anticipating this situation without this data. Several temporary solutions were quickly identified, including the use of a mobile ramp or support for the student’s access to the building, but they were refused.” ISJ Mureș spokesperson Târgu Mureș told Radio Romania.
Finally, the authorities called for the back-up subjects and transferred the student to another exam centre.
According to the Mureș County School Inspectorate, the high school student in a wheelchair will take the following tests of the Baccalaureate also in the new exam center, where he benefits from appropriate conditions for access and conducting the exam.
