In the next four years, over 15,000 students and over 37,500 teachers will be the target group for actions that desire to reduce functional illiteracy. Five school inspectorates and five houses of the teaching body (from Alba, Argeș, Dolj, Ilfov, Suceava) are partners of the Ministry in the project.
The poor results from the Pisa tests determined the authorities to look for photo solutions: Shutterstock
The above institutions, together with the Institute of Education Sciences (IȘE), will coordinate similar institutions in the rest of the counties. The teachers, those over 37,500, will be prepared to teach so that the notions are no longer received by students as meaningless and without applicability in real life.
The Minister of Education and Research signed at the beginning of this week the financing contract for the project that enters the implementation on October 1, 2025. The project “Intervention mechanism for functional literacy in pre-university education (MIAF), SIMS 335928” code is co-financed through the Education and Education Program 2021-2027 Gymnasium (ISCED 1-2) in the fields of reading, mathematics, sciences, civic education and digital education, MEC announced.
The total eligible value of the project is 207.160,606.80 lei, of which the eligible non -reimbursable value from FDR/FSE+/FC/FTJ funds is 166.709.127.57 lei.
Beneficiaries – small schools with 1-2 rows of parallel classes
The partner counties Alba, Argeș, Dolj and Suceava will also coordinate other counties in the region, which will be rounded up. The preparation of the human resource, respectively the over 37,500 teachers, falls to the houses of the teaching body. The target group is teachers from primary and secondary education, who will be capable of using the new tools also carried out within the project, by the IȘE. The stage will be followed by piloting the mechanism in schools, capitalizing on the human resource formed and preparing the education system through the correct and unitary information, in order to generalize the positive experiences.
The elaboration of the technical resources that will ensure the implementation of this project will be preceded by a scientific research, its purpose being “The precist and realistic identification of the existing situation regarding the functional literacy at primary and secondary level in Romania, but also following the establishment of the needs that, by implementing the project, will generate the change”, As the specialists who elaborated this project have proposed.
The pilot project will be involved in 176 schools, four in each county (two from the urban area, two from the rural area), and the beneficiaries’ selection will be made to the total number of students registered, to which the percentage of functional illiteracy registered by Romania 2022 (40%) will be applied.
On average, 860 students from each county, enrolled in the four schools, with an average of 215 students/school will be included. From Bucharest, two schools/sector will be selected, with a minimum of 215 students.
“The small schools with 1-2 rows of parallel classes will be selected, to respect the fact that, mostly, this type of school is specific to functional illiteracy”is mentioned in the project.
Of the total of over 15,000 students in the target group, 2,350 students from 47 schools (one school per county) will participate in the experimental intervention (pilot research), benefiting from current activities centered on the functional literacy in the five areas targeted by the project.
Another 12,650 students at the risk of functional illiteracy (on average 98 students/school, from 129 schools, three of each county) select following the initial test, will participate in teaching-learning-evaluation activities in relation to the functional literacy, in the fields: reading, mathematics, education. The activities will be carried out by the staff participating in training and final testing.
The teachers will have material materials available. The selected schools-for the moment this stage has not been realized-will benefit from an allowance of 500 lei/student involved in the project, following which the necessary resources will be purchased. Each school will carry out its own analysis, depending on the result of the tests applied to the students, so as to insist on the field in which the most intervention is needed.
They can be purchased: educational materials, educational software, interactive educational games, auxiliary curricular materials – collections, atlases, maps, notebooks, kits, out -two instruments, consumables, etc.
Of the 2,350 students participating in the experimental intervention, 1,000 students from the 47 schools (a school/county or sector) also benefit from remedial activities centered on the functional literacy in three of the five areas targeted by the project (literature, mathematics, sciences).
The final target of the project, regarding the teachers, is for at least 30,000 to be certified by completing the courses and successfully participating in the final evaluation of the training courses. The teachers from the schools in which remedial activities will be carried out, participants in training in the first stage, will also benefit from advisers during piloting, through mentors.
Also within the project will be organized 135 workshops for groups of 50 teachers (three in each county and one in each sector in Bucharest), workshops, focus-group, conferences, activities to promote good practices organized by pilot schools.
At the end of the 48 months in which the project is carried out there will be a supporting application, as a digital space for supporting the training programs in primary and secondary education. In this application the teachers will have access to educational resources-supportly elaborated within the project.
