Every year,
\nRomania compels worldwide recognition for the exceptional results obtained by
\nRomanian high school students at the international mathematics, physics,
\nchemistry, astronomy or computer science olympiads. But those teenagers account
\nfor a small percentage of the total number of those whom the country will have
\nto rely on in the near future. According to the PISA tests, Romanian teenagers
\nwho are now 15 years old get low marks in mathematics, reading and sciences as
\ncompared to those who are now 9 years old. In other words, Romania has obtained
\nthe poorest results of the last 9 years in the OECD periodical test. According
\nto that evaluation, 44% of Romanian school students do not understand what they
\nread and cannot perform basic arithmetic operations, functional illiteracy
\nbeing alarming. Romania ranks 47th out of 79 countries, which is
\nquite relevant. The results of the PISA tests confirm what has been said for
\nyears, namely that the Romanian education system is a complete mess and the
\nsuccessive education ministers have done nothing but take certain measures,
\nsome of them catastrophic. The reaction of liberal Education and Research
\nMinister Monica Anisie is actually shocking. She believes that the PISA tests
\nare not the expression of individual performances and that the participants’
\ninvolvement was not full since there was no stake. We must not worry, Monica
\nAnisie said. But we should – said a journalist in an article recalling that
\nRomania is blood poisoned by emigration, a major workforce crisis and now by
\nfunctional illiteracy. In the journalist’s view, the authorities should worry,
\nbut not in a barren way; they should make rapid and major changes in an
\nobsolete system which seems to run counter to the ongoing digital revolution,
\nwith some less trained teachers and many
\ndisinterested students. Obviously, the quality of education in Romania needs to
\nbe increased not by cosmetic measures but by substantial measures -says Prime
\nMinister Ludovic Orban. In 2014, when he got his first mandate as president of
\nRomania, Klaus Iohannis, a teacher himself at the time, promised a strategy
\nentitled Educated Romania. The strategy was submitted to public debate in
\nlate 2018, that is after four years of his first mandate, being criticized. It
\nis so vague that it will provide no concrete solution, the critics said; the
\nturmoil it has triggered rather than the solutions illustrates quite a troubled
\npolitical and social environment. In other words, the lack of clear and
\ncoherent measures to straighten out the situation is more serious than the
\nRomanian school students’ results at the PISA tests.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The latest on the Romanian education system<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":83945,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37738],"tags":[39830,39829,38729],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-83944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-today-in-the-news","tag-functional-illiteracy","tag-pisa-tests","tag-romanian-education-minister"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n