More than 114,000 students in their last year of high school appeared, on Monday, March 23, for the first test since the 2026 Baccalaureate simulation, the one for Romanian Language and Literature.
The first test of the simulation of the Baccalaureate exam, the one in Romanian language and literature, was held nationally in 1,368 educational units (95.87% of the total). In another 59 high schools, students – more than 6,400 in number – could not participate due to the decision of their teachers to boycott this activity in protest against the austerity measures adopted in education.
In the centers where the simulation took place, 23,100 absent students were also recorded, the large number of absences being, in many cases, attributed to students from evening classes who usually do not attend the simulations.
Olt: almost half of the enrolled students were absent
In Olt county, where last week the simulation of the National Assessment was organized in all exam centers, this time there are two large high schools where the high school students will not solve the subjects in the action that is held at the national level. “Radu Greceanu” National College Slatina and “Ion Minulescu” National College Slatina, the only national colleges in the county, are the units where the teachers decided to join the protest announced by the unions, and their decision was respected by the management teams. In these educational units, which in total number more than 400 students of the 12th grade, simulations of the Baccalaureate tests are constantly organized, therefore the students are not deprived of the chance to be evaluated, say the teachers.
At the Olt county level, instead, the first test of the Baccalaureate simulation was held in 28 educational units. According to the statistics from the Olt County School Inspectorate, 3,295 students were registered for simulations, of which 1,692 showed up. Over 400 of the absentees are from the two high schools where the simulation was not held, and over 700 others are 13th grade students from the evening education form.
“We can see where we still have to learn”
At the “Alexe Marin” Technological High School in Slatina, students from the two 12th grades showed up in large numbers for the first test of the Baccalaureate simulation.
“Today we had three absences, during the first simulations no student was absent. We also have monitoring from the School Inspectorate, things are going smoothly”, specified the director of the high school, Prof. Marian Croitoru, for The truth.
As for the boycott action, which was not carried out in this unit, “I put the decision to the group and no one refused me”, the director also specified.
The students from the “Alexe Marin” Technological High School with whom I spoke were of the opinion that the simulation helps them, even if they also frequently work on exam-style tests in class.
“I stayed in the gym for two hours. Subject III was more difficult, the poetry of Lucian Blaga gave me bigger problems”, said the first student interviewed. He didn’t remember much about the other subjects. “If you ask me now, I don’t know anymore. At Mate I hope it will be better”, the student added.
“I found them easy. Now, let’s see how it will be. For those who learned it was easy”appreciated another student, from the specialization “Electronics and Automation”. Consider simulation beneficial. “We can see where we still have to learn and what stage we are in. I don’t meditate, but we do tests at school, we review…”, the student added.
“The simulation was OK. It wasn’t hard, it wasn’t easy, it was what was needed. I liked topic II, let’s identify two ways of characterization. It was a little harder than the county one. There wasn’t a big difference, in both there were modernist poems and in the subject II characterization, only that
Although the subjects did not give him much trouble, he said he expected a grade of 7.00. “I didn’t write much in subject III, it took me by surprise, I was expecting something else. I looked over the past simulations and got an idea. And it wasn’t what I expected”the student added.
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“I found them quite easy. I really could have done more, but I didn’t push myself that hard. I found them easy. Subject III surprised me a little. I saw that last year, too, it was quite easy. I think something like this will fail in the summer exam. It’s good training, yes, really, because we’re preparing and hoping to get a high grade. Simulation in exam conditions helps us a lot. I believe that there is still time to prepare, at any time one can study for a higher grade. In this simulation I expect 6.57, so”, another student rated his performance.
“Subjects were accessible”
The great plus of the subjects from the Romanian language and literature test simulation of the Baccalaureate 2026 was, according to teacher Alina Becheru, that it challenged the students to search and provide answers, being strongly anchored in reality.
“The subjects were accessible, the difficulty even medium to low, I think. Indeed, at first glance they seem very simple, but they are deeply anchored to the reality of young people who are preparing to become adults, and then some of the requirements could also have been considered as life experiences”. appreciated Prof. Becheru.
The first subject, a memorial text written by Mircea Micu, was appreciated as an interesting one. “The topic is an interesting one. It was the account of a tense prank played on Marin Preda. Again, I think it is an inspired and engaging choice, because, beyond the need to focus on the text and understand the text, the students had to go deeper into the text and understand that, beyond the fun, that prank was about the life’s work of a writer. The requirements were not complicated, they were common items”, Prof. Alina Becheru showed.
Item B of subject I was “an ethics exercise disguised as a Romanian language test”, according to Prof. Becheru. “Why? Because the requirement was this: What is the impact of a hoax and its consequences? Or, in this age where
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And for the second subject, which concerned the characterization of a character, the text was one “particularly interesting”Prof. Becheru analyzed, because the character was a child who had a destructive behavior only because the home environment determined him to behave in this way.
The third subject, which remains a tiebreaker, at first glance seems, for students from the technological, vocational or real profile, that it could have caused problems. The opera – the poem “I don’t crush the crown of wonders of the world”, by Lucian Blaga – was recently read in class and was also included in the curriculum for the county simulation, so it shouldn’t have been a big surprise, believes Prof. Alina Becheru.
The grades should be high, the teacher added, and the passing rate for this test should be very good. “The grade required to pass could only result from the first two subjects. For a child who is preparing and has learned, or managed to read, or recapitulated, the poetry of Lucian Blaga, the grade could be quite high. But, I come back, the subjects, the themes chosen, are very interesting, they are even captivating, I am not exaggerating when I say this. (…) They are some interesting texts and very much anchored in reality”. the teacher pointed out.
If, on the other hand, the poor results are also obtained, “it should make us think”, drew Prof. Becheru’s attention. It would be the signal that in general children have a rather limited horizon, or that the openness to the virtual world already transforms them and greatly reduces their ability to express themselves easily, concluded Prof. Alina Becheru.
