Only 64.91% of the children who started school in 2017 managed to obtain at least an average of 5 in the National Assessment 2026, shows the latest report of the “Save the Children” Organization, which followed the course of an entire generation, from the preparatory class to the national exams.
After nine years spent in the education system, the generation that entered the preparatory class in the 2017-2018 school year reached the end of secondary school with very different results from one county to another, almost 35% of them failing to pass the National Assessment.
Of the 174,567 children enrolled in the preparatory class in 2017, 113,316 obtained an average of at least 5 in the National Assessment 2026, which, at the level of the entire generation, means a percentage of 64.91%.
However, the differences between the counties are very large in terms of the results obtained in the national exams. While in some areas less than half of the students passed the grade 5 threshold, in others the percentage exceeds 80%.
The worst results, in Călăraşi
The lowest results reported for the entire generation appear in Călărași county. Among the children who started school in this county in 2017, only 43.06%, i.e. less than half of them, obtained an average of at least 5 in the 2026 National Assessment.
In Teleorman, the percentage is 50.73%, and in Caraș-Severin it reaches 51.14%.
At the opposite pole is the city of Bucharest, where 84.06% of the children who started school nine years ago managed to obtain an average of 5 in the final exam of secondary school. In Cluj County, the percentage is 77.38%.
The difference between Călărași and Bucharest thus reaches over 40 percentage points, according to the report of the Save the Children Organization.
Less than 50% achieved averages above 7
Among the students who took part in all tests of the National Assessment 2026, 48.47% obtained averages above 7.
In this context, Save the Children Romania draws attention to the fact that the results obtained in the exam are influenced by the conditions in which the children spent their school years, the resources available in the educational institutions, the situation of the families and the access to educational support.
Thousands of children, “lost on the road” before the National Assessment
Not all the children who started school in 2017 ended up taking the secondary school final exam, also reports Salvaţi Copiii, stating that between the number of students enrolled in the preparatory class and that of the children who started the eighth grade in the fall of 2025, there is a difference of 6,851 students, which represents 3.92% of this generation.
The biggest decreases until the beginning of the last year of secondary school were recorded in Covasna (15.16%), Mureș (12.7%) and Ialomița (11.99%).
An even greater number of students did not get to take the National Assessment, because, between the beginning of the 8th grade and the registration for the exam, another 19,448 children, i.e. 11.14%, disappeared from the system.
The highest percentages for this indicator appear in Călărași (22.57%), Giurgiu (21.02%) and Brăila (17.9%).
Among the students registered for the National Assessment, 5,017 children, representing 2.87% of the generation, did not appear for one or more tests.
“A major conclusion is that factors that strongly influence access to education and school results continue to remain undocumented in the context of the National Assessment: socioeconomic status of the family, disability or special educational needs, the impact of simultaneous teaching, the resources of the school attended, etc. This year’s results confirm that the problems of the education system are not limited to exam performance, but are related to the entire course of a generation and to inequalities between counties”. says Gabriela Alexandrescu, executive president of Save the Children Romania.
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