Nicoleta Teodora Rîpeanu took the 2024 Titularization contest in Olt county, and in the written test she was initially marked with 4.60, so that after re-correction the mark was over 8.00. Like the young teacher, there were hundreds of candidates, which raises serious questions about the evaluation.
Professor Teodora Rîpeanu obtained over 8.00 after re-correction PHOTO: personal archive
The young English teacher took part in the Titularization competition for the first time in 2019, having previously worked in the private sector. With the grade obtained, he taught three years in a row in Bucharest and Giurgiu. In the meantime, he also passed the Definitive and wants to enroll in the second degree and the doctorate. Since 2022, she has been on maternity leave, and this year she decided to return to the department and chose her county of origin. He registered again for the Titularization competition, took the written test and when the results were displayed he found out with amazement that his grade was 4.60, far below the estimated grade, throwing all his plans upside down. The same thing happened, but with a difference of more than four points, to another candidate also from Olt, who competed in another discipline.
The English teacher also shared her experience on Facebook, and candidates from all over the country confirmed that they had similar experiences.
“We’re losing good system people to system failure”
“A colleague informed me that I had taken 4.60…
(IRE OF)…
I didn’t believe it the first time, I couldn’t open the page, I had to enter Incognito. Unbelieving Thomas still had hope, but he hoped in vain. While on vacation in Greece, I put the glasses on my eyes, so that I wouldn’t be seen how the tears flow more like the sea next to me. What to do?! I’m looking for a xerox, I file an appeal online (here’s another story).
The day and the holiday kind of went by the water of Saturday, the thoughts of Valma. I couldn’t understand how even the first time when I didn’t know what to eat with this exam I took it, and now that I had a clue, little”, reported the teacher, her confession being published on the “Jurnalul unui profesor” account.
The week of waiting was torture, the teacher continued, so that on the day announced for displaying the results after the appeals, she found out that her grade was 8.03. She felt, the young woman wrote, as if she had won the Lotto.
“Someone responsibly proofread my paper and I got 8.03. What happened to the first one?! How did this banter exist?! Moreover, I had started looking for another job and starting to reorient myself.
We are losing good system people due to system error (to be nice).
My paper had some cuts, I’m sure it was read between the lines, especially since I gave it last. It no longer required interest or responsibility, so I was almost out of a job.
Thank you, Lord, that it finally ended up in the right hands!”, the teacher finished her story.
Nicoleta Teodora Rîpeanu says in the discussion with the “Adevărul” reporter that she hoped that, by making the situation public, the evaluating teachers could see her text and thus understand the implications of a hastily made evaluation. In the meantime he learned many other similar stories and signed several petitions. She would even like to know what happened to her paper and how such a difference in scores was reached between the original grade and the one after appeals.
The teacher says that she supports the proposal to form a body of evaluators, so that candidates no longer have suspicions about the competence of those who correct the papers. Moreover, they would like to participate in the evaluation and correct carefully, because these grades can influence the decision of a well-prepared graduate to stay in the system or to turn to another field without thinking.
“I don’t even allow myself to blame them, only that it seemed to me a very big difference between the first evaluation and the second one”, says the teacher.
He had colleagues who initially thought about filing an appeal and feared that the reassessment might lower their grade, so they gave up. “On the second proofreading, he managed to honor our work. I don’t know if it happened in other subjects, but in English there were differences of at least two points. I know this because we have a group where we still talk,” adds the teacher.
“If you’ve already digitized, do it like a book”
On the other hand, the evaluation in the digital system can be considered a plus, the teacher believes, but things should be carried out to the end.
“If you’ve already digitized, do it like a book. Give me a laptop and let me write in word, turn off every source of the Internet so I can go back to what I did wrong. For example, I misspelled one letter in a word. I cut that whole word out. And I was de-pointed for that, because you are no longer allowed to write on top, to come back… It would really be good, if you still digitized it, to move on, you didn’t just take my sheet, you scanned it and sent it to the country. Maybe I’m wrong”, says the teacher.
The way the topics are structured could support such discussions, Teodora Rîpeanu believes. Certain proposals made on various groups also targeted this aspect.
“There are no or few objective items, even grammar is a subjective subject. There are some fixed topics, but even there it is interpretable according to the model, but the rest is subjectivity. And there are many exceptions”, the teacher explains how big differences in grades can be reached quite easily. On the other hand, they wouldn’t want all the topics to be grid type either. “To keep at least one subject, to see that teacher acquires English writing and comprehension. Yes, I agree with the grid, on certain subjects, but at least one subject should not be a grid, let it be seen there that that teacher really acquires the subject”added Teodora Rîpeanu.
The teacher will know where she will teach from the fall of this year – only for one year, because the substitutes have no other option – in just a few days, when she will attend the public meeting to fill vacant positions/chairs/parts of chairs that have viability under 4 years. He would like it in the city he lives in or as close as possible.
In 2024, she took the Titularization exam for the second time and says that she would be willing to go through this process again in the following years, but not many, because the status of substitute is not at all enviable. Substitutes, regardless of the grade obtained at the Enrollment, conclude a contract for a single year every summer and are afraid that next summer they will not be able to occupy a position, or not one that will satisfy them. The teacher believes that she has an advantage over other candidates due to the fact that she has several specializations and can teach, in addition to English, Romanian language and literature, French and Latin. However, this provisional state can cause many trained young people, for whom there are almost never available positions, to give up, the teacher says.
