Along with and complementary to official data,
\nvarious NGOs and experts have made their own assessments of the education
\nsystem. One of them is Human Catalyst, an organisation whose president, Laura
\nGreta Marin, in cooperation with other experts, has created a specialised tool
\nto assess socio-educational risks that Romanian schools are exposed to. The
\ninstrument is known as IRSE, the socio-educational risk index. So far, the
\nindex has only been used to analyse primary and secondary schools, that is
\nchildren aged 6 to 14. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
IRSE combines several data, including the school
\ndropout risk, the share of students who have been expelled or who have to
\nrepeat a year. Secondly, IRSE takes into account the skills of the teaching
\nstaff, which means the share of teachers with unsatisfactory skills and
\ntraining, and also the level of education of the students, as revealed by the
\nnational examination that children have to sit in the 8th grade.
\nAlso, the tool takes into consideration the social and economic development of
\ntheir respective localities, more specifically the degree of marginalisation,
\nin keeping with studies provided by the World Bank. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Here is Laura Greta Marin talking about the results
\nobtained for the 2016-2017 school year:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
The IRSE index sets a scale of 1 to 10, whereby 10
\nis the maximum socio-educational risk score that a school can get. When we made
\nthe classification, we identified four big categories of schools: schools with
\na high level of performance, with scores of 0 to 1 (totalling 446 across the
\ncountry), average schools, with an index ranging from 1 to 3 (which account for
\n62% of the total of schools in Romania, namely approx 2,600 units),
\ndisadvantaged schools, accounting for 26% of the total (115), and very
\ndisadvantaged schools, accounting for 1% of the total (54 schools).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Based on information provided by IRSE, experts in
\neducation were able to create a generic profile of the school at maximum risk
\nin Romania. Here is Laura Greta Marin again:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
These are the schools in the category of the most
\ndisadvantaged, as they were described by the World Bank. They are small
\nschools, with some 300 pupils. The share of ethnic Roma children is over 10%,
\nand in some schools most of the children belong to this ethnic category. The
\nschool dropout rate exceeds 10%, and it can go up to as much as 70%. The share
\nof teachers who do not have the necessary skills, training and level of
\nperformance can reach 5%. 30% of the pupils who finish the 8th grade
\ndo not register for the national evaluation examination. Also, the average
\ngrade of those that took part in the examination was below 5.50. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Assessing and comparing the data for 2015, 2016 and
\n2017, the experts with the Human Catalyst association found a particular
\nsituation, which they called the Braila phenomenon, and is linked to the
\nnational evaluation examination. In Romania, at the end of the 8th
\ngrade, pupils are required to take a national evaluation examination, on the
\nbasis of which they can enrol into a high school. Depending on the grades
\nobtained as a result of this examination, and also on the basis of the results
\nobtained in 8 years of study, they qualify for a certain high school. Also
\ndepending on these results, an informal classification of schools is made. And
\nhere is what the so-called Braila phenomenon is about, as Laura Greta Marin
\nhas explained:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Last year, Braila ranked 2nd among the
\ncounties with the highest averages following the national evaluation examination,
\nafter Bucharest. However, Braila was also the county with the lowest rate of
\nparticipation in the examination, with some 40% unregistered pupils. So, in
\norder to understand the situation, we called school inspectors, school
\nprincipals, and also parents, who told us that a certain ‘procedure’ had been
\nused for some time now: children who do not perform well in school are advised,
\nforced or blackmailed not to register for the national examination, in order to
\nmaintain the high score of the county. In fact, we have similar reports from
\nall over the country. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Children with poor school results or on the point of
\nbeing flunked are expected to get poor results in the national evaluation, the
\nmore so as they first take a simulation test. That’s is why the school
\nmanagement board tries to talk these pupils into not sitting the national
\nexamination, says a mother of three from Bucharest. Her boys, triplets, had got
\npoor results in the math exam, being on point of being flunked. Instead of
\nbeing given the chance to get better marks, something different happened to the
\nboys, as their mother recalls: <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
They were getting bad marks and I was unaware of the
\nsituation. I was amazed to find out. I knew about their poor school results,
\nbut I didn’t know how bad they truly were, I mean they got 2 and 3, on a scale
\nfrom 1 to 10. Afterwards, the headmaster herself told me bluntly she would make
\nsure the math teacher flunked them so they wouldn’t be able to sit the national
\nexamination. Their poor results would have lowered the overall average marks
\nobtained by her school, which was considered a good one. She used these words.
\nSo, it seemed to me the headmaster put pressure on the math teacher. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Leaving aside the fact
\nthat this type of pressure is not legal, the boys’ mother says it also affects
\nthe children’s state of mind and self esteem:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
They are left with the only option of taking the
\nexams in the autumn session. It is like they have already been defeated, like
\nembarking on their journey of life with severed wings. They had a sort of
\nnervous breakdown. They saw no point in studying any longer since they would be
\nflunked anyway. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Consequently, the boys’
\nmother filed a notification to the Education Minister two weeks ago. Also, at
\nthe invitation of Human Catalyst, several NGOs have sent a petition to the
\nrelevant authorities describing the Braila phenomenon. Two weeks after the
\nrequest was filed, the National Education Ministry invited the representatives
\nof the signatories for talks, the conclusions of which are to be made public. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Our editorial team has
\nalso requested the Education Ministry to express its standpoint on the Braila
\nphenomenon. Here is what the line ministry wrote in a communiqu\u00e9 issued a week
\nago: The National Education Ministry promotes and pursues an educational
\npolicy aimed at ensuring equal chances to education, equal access to all forms
\nof education and at the same standards of quality, for all children. No
\nnotifications of a concrete situation regarding the aforementioned phenomenon
\nhas been brought to the attention of the National Education Ministry by parents
\nor pupils. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Along with and complementary to official data, various NGOs and experts have made their own assessments of the education system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":142764,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42997],"tags":[38730,116464],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-142763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-today","tag-education-system","tag-romania-en"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n