Romania debates the framework plans for the high school, and the consultation process has revealed an unexpected resistance. The approval of these framework plans, the elaboration of programs and new textbooks, teachers, all until the beginning of the school year 2026-2027 will follow.
Schools, encouraged to make available to students more courses of photo choice: Archive
The framework plans for high school were launched in public debate on the last day of January, after several postponements last year. The Ministry of Education also announced a graph on public consultations, according to it, the process will end on March 6. A period of analysis will follow, for the framework plans (the form that will result after consultations) will be adopted this year. Also this year the school programs, but also the evaluation standards for students, should be developed, so that during the year 2026, until the beginning of the school year 2026-2027, the new textbooks will be elaborated. Also, teachers should go through training programs until the beginning of the school year. The first to learn in accordance with the new framework plans are the students who will start, in the autumn of next year, the 9th grade, being the first to support, in 2030, the baccalaureate in the new form.
Is it, or not, time so that until the autumn of next year everything is well prepared and ready to apply?
“Regardless of what things look like, as far as I feel, there is an important determination at the level of the Ministry’s management that the plans will come into operation. Or plans mean plans as such approved, it means school programs, it means training, it means manuals, so I think it is possible to have the determination that no matter how tight the calendar is to keep it in fact. “says Professor Marian Stas, education expert. The mission, although it seems almost impossible, is not, adds the expert, explaining how everything can be put into practice.
“By far the most important aspect is the completion of the frame plans. Of course it will be an extremely accelerated and intense calendar, that we are talking only for a year. (…) The framework plans are mandatory to be made for the whole cycle, this is the biggest challenge. After that the school programs I would do so, for the whole cycle, but nothing happens if I do, for example, for the 9th and 10th, and the following year they will be separated and the textbooks to I make the 9th grade. Such a stage can be made, I do not see a special problem, but, of course, the more we do until 2025-2026 until September 1, the better ”is of the opinion of Prof. Marian Stas.
“Resistance to change”
What surprised during the elapsed time from the public debate of the new framework plans for the high school, says expert Marian Stas, is the extraordinary resistance to change, coming from the system. “I did not imagine that such a process can record such resistance to change. I imagined that it is resistance to change for all possible reasons – political cynicism, imposture, incompetence, interests that have nothing to do with the good of the children – but I found that in these weeks when Daniel David honestly started the conversation Really, with him in front, people saw death with their eyes, many of them. That is, they realized that it is good and that important transformations will appear, which, at the peak, have solutions. But it does not matter that they have solutions, the man when he is threatened, his eyes are blushed and they behave viscerally, they do not behave rationally ”, says Marian Stas.
Teachers’ reaction has two explanations, according to the expert. A first explanation would be that those who challenged from the first moments the framework plans launched in public debate – accusing that they disappear hours/chairs, of renouncing important disciplines such as geography and history, etc. -they did it without taking into account the third column in the framework plans, respectively “curriculum at the decision of the students in the school offer (CDEOȘ), which is not yet completed. “Only then will we actually know what budgets we will have, when we know what the preferences are and what is the decision of the students in the school offer”, Explains Stas. The second important thing, which is also a little talked about, but which alerted the teachers, stresses the expert, is that “There is certainly no teacher on the roads.” “Law 185 of 2020 extends the concept of didactic rule defined in the first law of national education, no. 1 of 2011, (…) and adds a very rich palette of non -teaching activities taken into account at age and pension. In other words, the problem is solved, hit by nullity. When it comes to change, the first two reactions are denial and anger. So it’s not rational behavior. But the solution exists well in the law. And then, for example, if you stay with half the norm of hours at the chair, you can complete your norm with: tutored and mentoring, career counseling for children, writing projects, because the law allows you this ”, explains Marian Stas.
“A single variant of the frame plan no longer satisfies”
The discussions, with all the explanations that have come in the meantime, since several sessions of debates have been consumed on the topic of framework, will not stop, believes the expert. It also comes with important recommendations, so that the needs that schools claim to be to a greater extent.
“The most delicate piece is the part of the frame plans. And here I have two important recommendations, because one thing is certain: a safe frame variant, for a single profile, no longer satisfies. It is impossible to do happy All children and all teachers and all debates if they put on the table a safe framework for theoretical high schools, for example. Or for vocational high schools, or for technological. The wise solution is as follows: for example, for the theoretical high schools to approve three variants of frame plans: a conservative one, for those who are afraid, one opened in a proportion of 40% in the students’ decision area in the school offer and another one Brave, up to 60%, to create its curricular offer. And then, things will certainly depress and the ministry is saved. Peter that at this moment the minister is blocked in this paradigm of centralization, that it comes with a single framework plan. Which is very stupid and very counterproductive at the present time. The thing he has to do to save is the following: for 95% of schools, from the entire public high school system, to put three frame plans-one conservative, semi and one brave-so that schools do the exercise to -and only chooses for the difference of 3-4-5% to exponentially accelerate pilots. To encourage curricular pilots in high schools that want to do this, which are from a completely different film than the 95%. This has to do the ministry and then create valves and create ways of creativity, thinking out of the box ”, believes the expert.
A statement from a teacher from Cluj, who welcomes the opportunity to provide students with a generous offer, anticipating that this will stimulate teachers to propose as interesting courses, it comes to confirm that there are schools willing to take Brave choices, says the expert.
A good manual “you can’t write it on your knees.” How much could it take
The time is sufficient for the elaboration of the new textbooks, even if this process should not be done in a hurry, says Prof. Stas.
“ (A manual-n. Red.) You can’t do it on your knees and you can’t do it today. He is challenging first and foremost from a pedagogical point of view, he is challenging and in terms of content, he has many valences in him to juggle the tendency to deal in a month. Manuals are not written in a month. The textbooks are written once, and you return to them again … For example, in American universities, in colleges, and not only there, there are editions of courses and textbooks. They are manuals that are refined and rewritten over 15-20 years. The 7th edition, the 9th edition, the 11th edition, to become better, more updated, more refined and so on. So I wouldn’t put less than 9 months. (…) Sigur că sunt oameni care scriu manuale, și au scris manuale și au experiență, au niște versiuni anterioare, dar eu nu le-aș fușeri pe astea, pentru că unul dintre punctele critice la momentul actual este calitatea slabă a foarte Many textbooks. Because they are written crazy, they are not written For the reading of the children, But they are written to show the authors how strong they are and how much the book I know, which is stupid. The good print does not go well in 30-60-180 days, it comes out of 9 months up. It is a whole alchemy, a whole disturbing process, a game with glass beads to exit a manual properly ”says the expert.
Another important process, the training of teachers to teach according to the new framework plans, can be carried out in parallel. They can work on working variants of the textbooks in advanced stages, or on topics already completed.
“When the frame plans are placed and begin to show what and how, easy-to-see, school programs and content begin to be drawn. And there is a process that can go simultaneously with the completion of the frame plans, because there are two major large pieces: the content (what I do) and what time budget I have allocated. And the time budget is the one that begins to be defined by the frame plans in the first place. It is an important moment when panic does not have its place. I do not diagnose at the moment at the moment, (…) now it is rather a defined process of a productive amount of adrenaline. Of course it is a pressure, without just and maybe, and time, content, resources and so on, but this from my point of view is good, it creates the premises for the processes to be done at normal speed, unfinished, neither left nor in crisis. For now, we are not in crisis, on my estimate ”concluded Prof. Marian Stas.
