After the disastrous results obtained by the students in the simulation of the National Assessment exam, it was the turn of the 12th graders to show what they did NOT learn in the four years of high school. Almost 40% of the students who took the Baccalaureate simulation failed to obtain a passing grade in Romanian. How did I get here? The students, the teachers, the parents, but also the authorities who do not move a finger to restructure the Romanian education system are to blame.
The Ministry of Education centralized the data obtained from the Baccalaureate exam simulation and provided the first statistical reports. Thus, we learn that 120,000 students participated in the exam, and of these, 39.87% scored between 1 and 4.99 in Romanian language and literature. Only 22 were rated 10.
As a comparison, while in the Romanian language the pass rate is only 60.13%, in the mother tongue and literature it is 84%. Practically, students belonging to minorities know their own language better than Romanians know theirs. And we are referring to a language learned in schools in Romania, not in the countries of origin. Which should give us even more food for thought!
In mathematics and history, the situation is equally dramatic: one out of three students is below the corrigential threshold. The percentage of those who failed to obtain grade 5 is 35.88%. And if we refer to the pass rate, it is 64.12%. The situation, however, could be even worse, if we consider that almost 20,000 students were absent from the simulation.
According to specialists, the results now are the weakest in the last eight years. The difference in level can be seen by making a simple comparison with the results recorded last year. Thus, in 2023, 79% of students received above grade 5 in Romanian Language and 67% received passing grades in mathematics.
The grades obtained this year are yet another proof – for those who needed it – that the education system in Romania needs to be restructured from the ground up, but no one is taking care of it. Absolutely everything should be changed: from the curriculum and subjects, to the volume of information, the way of teaching and assessment in the classroom.
“It is not possible that after 12 years of school, most of the children do not know the basics of the Romanian language. There are students who do not know how to connect two sentences, who do not know how to express themselves correctly, do not know the meanings of words, cannot put two ideas together”, the director of the “ILCaragiale” College, Prof. Andreia Bodea, commented for “Adevărul”.
Prof. Ionela Neagoe, director of the Gheorghe Lazăr College in the Capital, completed the idea by saying that the situation is really dramatic. “We have to go back a little, from the small and very small classes, where these children have to learn to read, understand and know how to writeit is”, she explained.
The worst results in recent years
We went through the high school years with emotions in Romanian. Many of today's students move through school like a goose through water. The headmistress of “IL Caragiale” confessed to us that the Romanian language teachers who corrected the papers complained to her about the fact that this year the students' level is extremely low.
“Feach teacher received around 80, 90 papers. And they told me that the level has never been so low. A colleague told me that out of almost 40 papers, she only has four or five with a passing grade, more than six. Instead, he had papers that he graded including a grade 1. Basically, the respective students gave the blank sheet“, Andreia Bodea also explained the situation. “But we shouldn't be surprised anymore. Because children no longer read, their vocabulary is extremely limited. Most of them can no longer express themselves except by waving their hands, their feet and blinking their eyesi”, said the director, who is a French language teacher. She told us that the students are, again this year, the authors of some hard-to-imagine pearls. “Some profound aberrations!” There are students who still do not know how to make the agreement between the subject and the predicate, who have not even correctly remembered the titles of some literary works.
On the other hand, in addition to the fact that students are no longer attracted to study, mock exams are not taken seriously either, according to Romanian language teacher Bianca Bibiruș.
“The grades are not entered in the catalog, they are not announced publicly, the children live with the false impression that they still have time to learn. But, on the last hundred meters there is no time to prepare enough. We are talking about the subject of the four years of study. How do you recover it in two, three months? Maybe, who knows, in this time, as much as they have left at their disposal, they can mobilize and recover a point, maximum two.. more than that, it is unlikely that they will succeed”the teacher specified.
In other words, the students are very poorly prepared, but also totally disinterested. The teachers say it. Because if you ask the children, they will say that the education system did not allow them to think freely, did not teach them how to judge things, how to argue, debate, say their own opinion. He did not allow them to have opinions. He only asked them to memorize trivial information that they won't even have a real need for in life.
Children's failure, a collective fault
The reasons that brought Romanian education to the edge of the precipice should, however, be sought in several directions. Children are, according to many education experts, to blame, but to a lesser extent. And that's because school is done, first of all, in the classroom. And in the classroom, many teachers limit themselves to teaching the lesson and that's it. Children receive information that is not explained to them, that they do not understand and do not know what to do with. The most handy is to memorize them. On the other hand, parents also have a major fault.
“The pressure they put on teachers is enormous”, explains Prof. Andreia Bodea. “Children were taught to run after high marks. Parents want performance, but only on paper, in the catalog. They don't care what actual knowledge their child has acquired. And this is how students with an average of 9, 10 in Romanian end up getting a 2 or 3 in the Baccalaureate. Why? Because we steal our own hats, that's why! I have never had a parent come to me to ask what their child knows. Instead, they come to ask why he got an 8 and not a 9. Or they ask me how he is doing so poorly when in grade school he had 10's on the line. And I tell them to go and ask the secondary school teacher why she gave him top marks when he doesn't know how to count to 20 or how old he is in French“, said the teacher.
We can say, without exaggerating too much, that we are facing an announced disaster. “The results so far are not a surprise. They are a natural consequence of the way our education system generally works. We're not talking about a small wound here, let's just put a band-aid on it. It is a deep wound that has been festering for years. Clearly we need a tough antibiotic. It no longer works with arnica cream“, draws the attention of the director of the Bucharest college.
“It is a reality that we, the teachers, have been pointing out for years, but no one heard us. We had a lot of laws, ministers..somewhere a lot of wrong decisions were made. You can't sit in an ivory tower and say it's okay when the world is falling apart around you“, says teacher Andreia Bodea.
The director of Caragiale is pessimistic and told us that the material of four years of study cannot be assimilated in two and a half months, what is left until the summer exam. “Things cannot be done overnight. It's like healing and that takes time. What to do in two, three months? And where and what to start with first? Because this grade is the result of all the years of study. I am very pessimistic“, the teacher told us bitterly. This is of the opinion that the Baccalaureate exam will probably be easier than the mock. “It won't be more difficult, that's clear. In general, over the last 10 years, exams have become easier and easier. It is very likely that in the future we will continue to lie to ourselves, to give more and more easily until we end up giving only the multiplication table, but I tell you that not everyone will know that either. And we will give more and more easy subjects until we don't give any more“.
Professor Bianca Bibiruș remains of the opinion that if you really want to, you can do it. But the desire to succeed must come from everyone: students, teachers, parents, the system. “Time is short. It puts pressure on all of us. So urgent action should be taken in the classroom. Teachers to devise a fight plan. We have time for recapitulation, it should be insisted on training tests”.
Iulian Cristache, the president of the Federation of Parents, does not agree with the “templated” thinking. “Children, when you take them out of the template, don't know how to connect two words anymore“, he explained. However, we must admit that it is too late now to resort to other methods. Therefore, point eye, point hit. “Pteachers should talk to each student individually, analyze the results, find out where there are problems and insist firmly in that direction. If we want to recover something“, stated Prof. Bianca Bibiruș.
