Romanian students who obtained 174 medals this year at Gimnaziada 2025, an international school sports competition, held in Serbia from April 4-14, will not be awarded by the Ministry of Education, a group of parents of these students reports.
Daniel David eliminated the II Olympic Excellence Scholarships PHOTO Mediafax
The parents of the students who won medals at the Gimnaziada international competition, organized in Serbia, were sent by the Ministry to the University Sports Federation to ask about the prizes, writes Edupedu.ro.
The students who represented Romania at international sports competitions received Olympic II excellence scholarships, but this year Minister Daniel David decided to eliminate these monthly scholarships, in order to save money on the Ministry’s insufficient budget. Daniel David justified the cuts in Education, as necessary to be able to end the year with salaries and scholarships paid, and specified that all scholarships cost 7 billion lei annually.
The minister announced, however, that these Olympic students, who no longer receive that scholarship, will receive prizes, from which “as a student, you can definitely afford to give yourself a merit scholarship every month”the minister specified. Moreover, on October 6, the minister announced: “I’m glad that, in the conditions of the fiscal-budgetary crisis measures, after securing the budget for awarding students with an average of 10 in the national assessment and the baccalaureate, we can continue, as in past years, awarding international Olympians.“
“This week parents were notified by the schools that international Olympian students will not be awarded”conveyed the mother of a student who obtained bronze medals in karate at the Gymnaziada in 2025.
“We are a total of 30 parents who got together and we reported the situation to the ministry and we will sue the institution. We asked for clarification and asked why they no longer reward these children, and the ministry passed the responsibility of rewarding these students to the Federation of School and University Sports (FSSU), which can reward the children if it has a budget, but does not force them to do it”says the father.
The answer of the Minister of Education
In the answer received by Edupedu from the Ministry of Education it is stated that “the award mentioned by you can be carried out by the Federation of School and University Sports. (…)”FSSU ensures the representation of Romania at the official competitions organized under the aegis of the international school and university sports federations, federations to which it is affiliated, collaborating in this sense with the national sports federations and ensures, within the approved budget, the awarding of outstanding performances obtained at official international school and university competitions”.
FSSU is an institution under the Ministry of Education which “ensures the necessary framework for the continuous development, organization and efficient functioning of school and university sports at the level of all its elements of structure and infrastructure. It elaborates and supports the strategy for the organization and development of school and university sports activity and represents the interests of the Ministry of Education in relation to national sports federations”the publication also notes.
The Romanian delegation at the Gymnaziada
This year at the Gymnasium, the Romanian delegation, including coaches, had 459 representatives (n. red. the most numerous representation) and won a total of 174 medals, ranking first, in terms of the number of medals obtained in the competition that lasted 10 days, between April 4 and 14. Romanian students won 44 gold medals, 54 silver medals and 76 bronze medals.
Children between 11 and 14 years old participated in competitions of: archery, athletics, badminton, basketball, volleyball, boxing, chess, sports dance, fencing, judo, karate, orienteering, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, wrestling.
Gymnasium is an international school sports competition recognized by the Ministry of Education by Order no. 3025/2025 for the approval of the competitions that will be organized and held in Romania, at the international, national and regional level, in the 2024-2025 school year.
