In a sea of regress, a county in Romania has achieved an additional 8.4 percent of the promotion rate at the baccalaureate, compared to last year. We tried to find out the explanations.
Harghita, the greatest progress in the 2025 baccalaureate (current promotion) data: min. Education
Harghita County is the only “green” county on the map that highlights the variation of the promotion rate at Baccalaureate 2025. Candidates have managed to achieve much better results than their colleagues last year, at the current promotion data being 8.4 percent in favor of high school graduates 2025.
The results are all the more surprising as only eight counties had better results or maintained, compared to 2024, analyzing the promotion rate for the current promotion plus previous promotions: Harghita (+5.3%), Ilfov (+2.3%), Covasna (+1.5%), Giurgiu (+1.4%), Satu Mare (+1.2%) (+0.9%), Iasi (+0.9%), Cluj (+0.1%).
This year, 66.3% of Harghita candidates passed the baccalaureate exam, compared to 61% in 2024.
Romanian language and literature, the sample that confused them in the past years, saved it
The progress is very high and is largely due to the results from the Romanian language and literature test, explains the officials of the Harghita County School Inspectorate.
In order to understand even better things must be said that in Harghita County, out of the 36 high schools, 28 are teaching in Hungarian and only eight with teaching in Romanian. Students who learn exclusively in Hungarian speak Romanian only at the time of Romanian language and literature. However, until this year they took the first written test of the baccalaureate exam with common topics for all high schools, being only the difference in the chain: human or real.
Four years ago, students from schools in Hungarian began to study Romanian after a new program, adapted to the Romanian language level. The year 2025 was the first year in which the graduates, about 2,000 in number, were able to support the Romanian language with structured topics according to this program.
“Everyone says they are simpler topics. They are not simpler, you can see them, but adapted to their linguistic level, in the sense that the texts are easier to understand,” Explains the Romanian language and literature inspector of IȘJ Harghita, Manuela Nicoleta Stîngă.
For most students is simply a challenge a discussion with a person who speaks Romanian at a level that exceeds their level of understanding. “This situation, as in Harghita or Covasna, is definitely not, say, in Cluj, although there is also Hungarian school. Because they have contact with the Romanians.”explains the teacher.
Although this year, for the first time, and only for the current series (the candidates from the previous promotions that registered for BAC 2025 had topics like those from the Romanian section), the candidates from the Hungarian section received totally different topics from the Romanian section, this is not the only explanation for the success.
„ÎIn November, a subject model appeared. Until November I did not know, in the Hungarian section, as the subject of baccalaureate will look. And then what did we have to do for four years? Meetings over meetings with teachers, believe me, monthly. I had an online session with my colleagues, to whom at least 150 people were connected, because, first of all, we had to apply the school syllabus correctly. Then we made a collection of models of training tests, we gave ourselves with the assumption how a topic will look. We helped each other at the county level. Then, when the program appeared, special meetings with each teacher. Let’s see how you get efficient now, because, good, you have applied the program for four years or three years, but now how you have to have results on the baccalaureate exam, because then I saw the program. Everything had to be done very, very fast and through many meetings and activities, and if this curriculum had not been applied correctly, if my teachers, they would not have spoken in Romanian and would not have insisted on communication in Romanian, these results would not have been reached ”, He said insp. Manuela Nicoleta Stîngă.
Theater with shows based on works in the bachelor’s program
In the school year 2024-2025, the Romanian language and literature teachers from the educational units with below 50% students promoted to the baccalaureate developed reports in which they mentioned the initial level of the students (established on the basis of the initial test applied), explained the manner of evaluation applied to grant the note/notes until the time of the report, specified etc ..
The teachers of Romanian language and literature participated in presentations of good practices – workshops and debates – including with guests from CNPEE. They even contributed to the elaboration of tests and scaling and scoring scales and measures.
“The success belongs to a team, the approximately 200 teachers of Romanian language and literature. And it is a four -year work ”, supports insp. Manuela Nicoleta Stîngă. These teachers did more than the Romanian language hours. They were involved in educational partnerships in which there were exchanges of students from the Hungarian and Romanian sections. Certain schools have signed partnerships even with schools in other corners of the country, Hungarian children spending a while in those schools, and the Romanian children, in the Hungarian ones.
The teachers also challenged the students to read, and in a time when teenagers can very hardly be detached from devices, in Harghita schools it has been possible, in the last four years, for 5,000 students to connect online from their classes only to read together from their favorite authors, changing opinions and transmitting personalities, personalities, personalities.
What the teachers were able to do for the students for whom the Romanian language has always been a fire test at the BAC was to bring the students of the theater and cinema university in Bucharest, who supported, for free, shows based on the works in the Baccalaureate program. Their shows were dedicated to both the students from the Romanian Section and those from the Hungarian section.
The success from the baccalaureate will not be repeated at the National Assessment, says Insp. Manuela left, and this is because the exam at the end of the gymnasium does not have the same stake for students, admission to high school producing regardless of note.
