More than a thousand students from Iași County did not pass in the previous school year, according to the data from the “State of Iași pre-university education” report. At the national level, the data from 2023-2024, show tens of thousands of students left repeating. At the same time, 31,000 students from this generation did not reach the eighth grade. We analyzed the two phenomena and all the experts consulted say the same thing: there is a correlation. And repeating a grade doesn’t solve learning problems. On the contrary, it comes with a series of shortcomings, also for the system, but especially for those who should benefit from it: the students.
Viforel Dorobanțu is the director of High School No. 1 Curcani, from Călărași county. A disadvantaged community, but where everything is done to keep the children in school.
“The characteristic of the school in Curcani is the application of another framework plan, due to the pilot school status. But the essence of the implementation of this piloting was in the adaptation of the school to the community. Where we have children who do not have their parents near, being away to work abroad, and everything that means education happens within the walls of the school. We have adapted the contents, teaching styles, different types of assessment in a form that is as accessible as possible. Obviously, we still have a lot of work to do, but the decrease in school dropout, if it is not caused by socio-economic problems, can be solved through didactic measures that keep the child close to school”. says Viforel Dorobanțu.
In the 2024-2025 school year, within the school, 59 students remained repeat students. Only three because they were left behind and didn’t show up. The rest stopped attending school.
“Out of a total of 650 students, it is revealed that a percentage of 9% remained repeaters from 31 classes. So, in our case, repetition is closely related to early school dropout. From my point of view, there is no positive effect, only that some rules of the education system must be respected, in the last instance”says the director with regret.
The negative effects of repeating the school year
He does not believe that repetition has positive aspects. On the contrary, he made a list of all the negative effects on students in this situation:
1. Decreased self-esteem and motivation
The student perceives the repetition as a personal failure. This leads to: loss of self-confidence; increased anxiety about school; reduced interest in learning (“I’m not good anyway”).
2. Labeling and social stigma
The student is aware that he has fallen behind, and his peers know this. Consequences may include: social isolation; marginalization in the new class; more difficult integration.
3. Increased probability of dropping out of school
Studies show that students who repeat at least once have much better chance to drop out of school before completion
4. Limited or non-existent long-term academic effects
Although initial gains may appear (the student knows some of the material), within 1–2 years the differences disappear. Repetition, alone: does not address learning gaps; does not change the way the student learns; it does not address the real difficulties (comprehension, rhythm, family context, motivation).
,,Obviously, a repeat student carries an unfair stigma. Most of the time he is looked at with distrust, not even the smallest good thing he does is promoted, he is often associated with the concept of a problem student. I dare to say that anyway he was “punished” once by breaking with his classmates, I don’t think that further stigmatization helps anyone. But here it depends on the openness and lack of prejudice that teachers should have, first of all. I believe that most of the number of repeats comes from absenteeism, not from the inability to pass the class. If a student attends classes regularly, the chances of them repeating are minimal“, adds Viforel Dorobanțu.
According to the director, the consequences of repeating the class also exist at the level of the education system:
“A repeat student costs the system an additional year of schooling, and at the school level it creates logistical and financial pressure without clear results”.
“Repetition is rather a risk factor, as it has disproportionately negative effects on the most disadvantaged students”
Professor Doru Căstăian also believes that repeating the school year is by no means a solution to the problem of poor academic results.
“Data collected by the OECD in various programs on repetition all over Europe and the world indicate the same thing: namely that repetition is more of a risk factor, that it has disproportionately negative effects on the most disadvantaged students and who are anyway at risk of exclusion in one way or another. Even more so in Romania, where there is practically no integrated and structured approach to its problem. That’s why policies regarding repetition are very, very strongly limited or shaped in most European countries. There are countries that allow repetition more easily, for example Portugal or the Netherlands. And countries that have a percentage close to zero, such as the Nordic countries.
The medium and short-term consequences can only be negative, because for us, repetition is seen more as a way of punishment and not as an opportunity to recover some gaps. The problem of gaps is, unfortunately, real”the Social Sciences teacher believes.
Lack of early prevention a problem
For her part, education specialist Gabi Bartic says:
“The repetition of the class, as we see it in Romania, does not solve the problem. Most of the time, it’s just the administrative record that a child hasn’t come to school enough to make progress. Repetition measures absence, not learning. The real problem is not that “we leave repeaters”, but that we leave children alone for years, without prevention and without early intervention”.
The link between repeating a school year and dropping out of school
The two phenomena are strongly correlated, all consulted specialists agreed.
“Repetition is one of the risk and aggravating factors for school dropout. So obviously the two are related. Let’s also take it intuitively, empathically, psychologically… Think how hard it is to awaken a spark of stable motivation in a student who has a lot of problems, maybe at home, poverty problems, which you repeatedly leave without stimuli. Which will obviously kill that bud of motivation”draws Doru Căstăian’s attention.
Gabi Barttic adds: “Repetition and abandonment are, in fact, the same problem seen in two periods. A repeat child today is, statistically, a child with a high risk of dropping out tomorrow. The 31,000 lost students are, for the most part, the children whom the system already “reported” a year, two or three years before, but who were not intervened”.
And Viforel Dorobanțu, comes from the school experience with an inverted perspective: students are left repeating precisely because they no longer come to school.
,,I really avoid saying that we “leave corrigents”, because as long as the student does not attend the classes, I dare to say that he “kind of leaves himself as a repeater”. There are very rare cases in which the teacher repeatedly leaves a student if a desire to be close to school, to knowledge can be observed in the student’s behavior. says the director.
The measures that can make a difference
Viforel Dorobanțu comes with two perspectives.
Regarding the school, he identified the following measures for the prevention of repetition and educational support:
1. Early identification of students at risk
2. Individualized Learning Plans (IPPs)
3. Hours of remedial support
4. Protection of self-esteem and motivation of students
5. Close collaboration with the family
6. Differentiated teaching in the classroom
7. Peer tutoring program
As for what can be done at the national level, he says:
“From my point of view, the reasons for repetition should be identified extremely clearly, which, I repeat, from my point of view are two: early school dropout, which causes the perpetuation of some gaps in the accumulation of knowledge and those cases which, for “cognitive reasons”, fail to reach a minimum level to be able to pass”.
How can the authorities keep children in school. “We are not talking about the impossible. We’re talking about care”
Regarding school dropouts, to the question “How can the state keep children in school?”, Professor Doru Căstăian comes up with the following perspective:
“Through serious punitive measures against those who do not send their children to school, or through positive motivation policies for students and parents. And probably what would be a more realistic alternative: a mix between the two. At the moment it doesn’t seem to me that we are doing anything. As always, we excel on the punitive side, but even that is not applied seriously and consistently. Nor could it, from my point of view, because it is not realistic”.
Gabi Bartic believes that the involvement of local authorities could make a difference in terms of abandonment.
“We can talk endlessly about large national figures, no doubt, but the reality is that problems are not solved in Bucharest with solutions that fit each case. It is solved, or not, in each community. (…) In a village, there are maybe three children at risk. Three. For these three children, a town hall and a local council can build, together with the school and social assistance, customized solutions:
– transportation for one,
– hot meal and after school program for another, family support in the third case.
We are not talking about the impossible. We are talking about care. About understanding that a child today can be, in 10 years, an autonomous adult — or an adult who will need support all his life. It depends on us. Sometimes we really just need to care.” concludes Gabi Bartic.
