The tenure exam has long been considered the professional benchmark for teachers in Romania: you pass, you become stable in your position, and your career in education takes a clear path. But in 2026, is this system still suitable? And does it really contribute to the fundamental role of education: to prepare future adults capable of finding their purpose in society? International recommendations say no. We analyzed what is happening now and how things could be done better with two teachers from Romania: Doru Căstăian and Vali Neagu.
What is tenure and how does it work?
Tenure is the national competition through which a teacher obtains a permanent position, for an indefinite period, in state pre-university education. It is, practically, the equivalent of an employment exam with major legal weight: once tenured, the teacher is no longer obliged to appear annually at the competition in order to keep his chair and benefits from a professional stability that is difficult to obtain otherwise in the Romanian budgetary system.
Without tenure, teachers teach as substitutes, hired for a fixed period, usually one school year.
The competition is held every summer and has two components: a special classroom inspection and a four-hour written test, which tests specialist knowledge and didactics of the discipline. The minimum grade for tenure is 7 in both tests. Those who score between 5 and 7 can become substitutes.
Stability versus capping
The stability offered – although theoretically a strong point of this process – is actually a double-edged sword, is the opinion of Doru Căstăian, professor of Social Sciences and a relevant voice in the field of Education, with years of teaching at the department, both at the secondary and high school levels.
“Once there’s no pressure, it’s pretty easy to cap yourself, to indulge. Since you’re not risking much by doing this.”
Another weak point is, in his opinion, related to the rigidity of this mechanism.
“Exiting and entering the system is very, very difficult. Basically, teachers who would have a vocation and desire to become members of the education system remain outside, sometimes for very long periods, even if they have very high grades”.
And he also gives an eloquent example of this:
“If a professor gets 10 in a year in which there are no tenured chairs, he only stays with the grade or the fame, while a professor who gets 7 or 8 in a year in which there are chairs can get tenure. If you ask me, this is a sign of the – I wouldn’t say dysfunctional – but deeply problematic character of the tenure system.”
“The exam reflects knowledge, not skills”
Professor Doru Căstăian also brings up a fundamental flaw of the current system:
“The exam does not reflect skills, at most it reflects some knowledge. But how this knowledge is actually applied in the school – because that is what skills actually mean – is something that the tenure exam does not verify. Of course, the tenure exam also requires certain inspections in the classroom, but, let’s be serious, these inspections are not a very viable indicator of the teacher’s real competence. The inspected classes very often have an artificial character, not eloquent and revealing for what he can do with true that teacher”.
At the same time, he advocates for an educational model in which the performance of teaching staff must be monitored, but differently than what is happening now.
“The simple fact that you have become a holder is not a guarantee that you will keep those professional standards throughout your profession. But this monitoring can be done in a different way than it is done now. Now we have, in my opinion, a completely outdated approach – not to say outright outdated – in which some officials of the school inspectorates, in fact a kind of “high priests” of the system, come to evaluate the concordance and the way the teachers manage to transpose the standards the ministry in the hour. Let’s be serious, things can no longer, from my point of view, be managed like this. Teaching and the education process today have little to do with what was happening 20 or 30 years ago. It’s really another world. The way in which education is carried out has become much more dynamic, more sensitive to the context,. So that no model that must always be validated from top to bottom can be very effective. Yes, there must be checks and permanent feedback between teachers, but it must be done in a constructive, open and collegial spirit, not in the form of rigid checks by some inspectors. “
Can we continue with the current form of tenure?
“If we can continue, I’m afraid we can continue. Indefinitely. The education system in Romania seems very resistant and I have no doubt that it can continue in this way. But for sure if we continue in this way, we will do it with costs for the students first and foremost and indirectly for their families and for the entire Romanian society. What I hope is that we will not continue like this in the years to come”, says the professor.
Doru Căstăian advocates a model inspired by the French or German experience, but adapted to the Romanian system:
“I would change tenure without the right of appeal following a single exam. I would introduce, perhaps, the concept of internship or initial qualification at the workplace under real tutelage and with real mentorship and with benevolent and, at the same time, rigorous supervision. So that tenure on the job comes at the moment when we really know that we want that person on that job.”
“A good teacher is one who succeeds in producing real learning”
Vali Neagu, teacher of Romanian Language and Literature at the Secondary School in Curcani, Călărași County, believes that tenure has three great merits: the single national standard, the limitation of appointments based on relationships and the objective criterion for tie-breaking. At the same time, like Doru Căstaian, he emphasizes its structural limits, especially when it comes to evaluating real teaching skills:
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“The exam evaluates memory, theoretical synthesis ability, resistance to stress. It does not sufficiently evaluate communication skills, classroom management, adaptability, relationship with students and parents, digital and applied pedagogical skills. A good teacher is not necessarily the one who writes the best in an exam, but the one who succeeds in producing real learning.”
At the same time, says the teacher, who teaches in rural areas, the assessment “it does not take into account the local context – the needs of the school, the profile of the students”.
Periodic assessments, but focused on skills and adaptability
Vali Neagu also talks about the need for periodic evaluations even for tenured teachers, but which should not focus on theoretical accumulation.
“These evaluations should check to what extent teachers are connected to changes in education, if they use modern methods, adapted to the needs of students and if their teaching strategies produce authentic learning, not just the transmission of information. The focus should be shifted from content reproduction to classroom practices, from “what the teacher knows” to what the student manages to do as a result of the educational act”.
The advantages of such a system would not be few at all, the teacher emphasizes:
“Such a system would encourage continuous professional development, reflection on one’s work and responsibility for the quality of education, without turning assessment into a punitive or bureaucratic tool. In this way, the stability offered by tenure would be doubled by a culture of continuous improvement, to the benefit of students and the entire education system.”
Like Doru Căstăian, I asked her if she thinks that Romania can continue with the securitization system for teaching staff.
“We can only continue if it is reformed”says Vali Neagu. Which also provides a list of things they would change:
- Reducing the weight of the written test;
- Introduction of a seriously evaluated practical internship (1–2 years);
- Competitions organized at school or consortia level, with clear national criteria;
- Correlating the exam with real, not hypothetical positions;
- Providing tenure after confirming competence over time, not in one day.
“I like the system in the Republic of Moldova, where grades are reconfirmed once every five years.”, says Vali Neagu. His conclusion:
“The tenure exam, in its current form, is not fundamentally wrong, but it is insufficient and rigid. It needs to be integrated into a wider system that emphasizes practice, continuous assessment and professional responsibility, not just performance on an exam day.”
What international experts say: OECD recommends change
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) analyzed the Romanian tenure system twice — in 2017 and in 2024 — and reached, each time, similar conclusions: the current exam is not the best tool for selecting and maintaining quality teaching staff.
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In the 2017 report, OECD experts found that in 2015, 73 percent of candidates did not pass tenure—a percentage that suggests the barrier to entry is either too high for available candidates or that initial teacher training is insufficient. In the 2024 report, produced at the request of the Ministry of Education, the OECD recommended the replacement of the tenure exam with a system of periodic assessments for recertification, aimed at the minimum standards of competence of all active teaching staff, not just those who want to become tenured.
Daniel David’s proposal: more autonomy for schools
The former Minister of Education, Daniel David, also came up with a variant of change: for the ministry to organize an annual “national education licensing exam”, and for all those who obtain at least grade 7 to become licensed in the teaching career and acquire the permanent right to occupy positions in the system, without repeating the exam. Subsequently, the former minister proposed, they can participate, at any point in their career, in the contests for the available positions, organized by the school units, according to a framework methodology established by the Ministry of Education.
And this option requires periodic evaluations:
“Graduates who obtain a position for a fixed period keep their position if its viability is extended annually by the school unit, subject to a positive internal evaluation, organized according to a framework methodology established by the ministry. (…) Those employed for an indefinite period (tenured) are evaluated based on minimum standards every 5 years. An unsatisfactory qualification for the teaching staff will lead to free mandatory training, completed with a rigorous evaluation – if this evaluation is not passed within two years, the contract will no longer be for an indefinite period”the former minister wrote in the QX report.
