Optional Secondary and High-School Courses

optional secondary and high-school courses Fore a few years now, school curricula in Romania have included several optional courses.


For a few years now, school curricula in Romania have included several optional courses. Based on the collaboration between schools, parents and pupils, such courses can be chosen to be taught even starting from the third grade. One of them focuses on architecture. Shortly after its approval, 'De-a arhitectura' Association, with help from the Architects' Association, completed a curriculum and a textbook for the third and fourth grades. The course can be taught in just one year, or along two years, to cover the third and the fourth grade. 


Architect Miruna Grigorescu, co-founder of 'De-a arhitectura' Association, told us more about this course: "This course was presented under a pilot project, in 7 classes in Bucharest, during the 2012-2013 school year. Since then, the number of classes has grown exponentially, with 60 classes the following year, and we now have more than 100 classes where this course is taught this year. Last year we shipped textbooks to 37 towns."


Children attending the course also benefit from the presence of a volunteer in the class, an architect who assists the teacher. 'De-a arhitectura' is a course that combines theory and practice, with a focus on the discovery of the town or city children live in. 


Here is Miruna Grigorescu: "At the age of 9, 10 or 11, it is essential for these children to experience the city, to be guided and encouraged to understand it in various ways. Back to class, they analyze together with the architect what they found out and then they get to build things themselves, from mock-ups to miniature cities, with the entire class contributing to that. Children learn how to scale and what a plane representation is, or what ergonomics means. Starting from this, they study materials and textures and also learn things about the geographic, climatic and even historical background of buildings. Then they learn about the city and how the city works as a mechanism or organism. They learn about urban regulations and their importance."


Given the popularity of the optional courses that have been taught so far, education authorities and civil society are discussing the possibility of introducing other subjects as well, such as legal education. Judge Cristi Danilet, a member of the Higher Council of the Magistrates, has been involved in such talks. He has even drafted a textbook for high-school students who will be able to use it when legal education becomes a subject matter in school curricula. 


Judge Danilet told us what he believed the new subject should cover: "We go beyond theory and we tell these children exactly what they are allowed or not allowed to do, in order not to break the law, be it the Constitution or the Criminal Code. They learn about their obligations when walking to school as well as their family obligations and their rights. Also, they will learn about their rights and obligations in relation to various public institutions. In the past years, in Romania, the number of children who appear before judicial bodies has increased. The number of juvenile delinquents has increased, and so has the number of child-victims and children abused by their own parents. Unless society does something to prevent them from breaking the law, five or ten years from now these children are very likely to break the law as adults."


The legal education textbook already includes chapters that are designed to introduce the current legislation to children. Cristi Danilet:

 "It includes 15 legal education lessons, with the help of which children are explained, in a non-technical language and using lots of examples, how they should behave in society, starting from their rights to the procedures for getting an ID or having their IDs renewed. From this textbook children learn what happens if their parents are working abroad or if they are divorced, how they can be protected against domestic violence and what kidnapping means. Also, they learn about the substances that they are not allowed to use, such as alcohol, tobacco and drugs, or how they are protected by law when buying a product that is past expiration date or does not work right. Other chapters concern traffic regulations, what happens to a child when they are caught traveling on a public transport means without a ticket, when children are allowed to set up a bank account, from what age on they can conclude a service agreement or even an employment contract."


All these practical aspects are highly appreciated by pupils, as Horia Onita, president of the National Pupils' Association told us:

 "We supported this initiative from the very beginning, because it is our belief that school should prepare children for becoming citizens and getting employed. Unfortunately, right now school does neither. School provides children with lots of theoretical information, quite uninteresting for them. It does not teach them how to learn, how to train themselves. These optional courses add value to the system and some of them have a wide applicability range. I'm talking here about legal or financial education. A few months ago we conducted a survey on 7000 pupils, and they said they were disappointed because they graduate from high-school with lots of information, but without knowing what an employment contract is, what the difference between a law and a government resolution is, or which are Parliament's responsibilities. No matter the job they will get, they will be faced with such things as VAT, taxes... these are things that the Romanian education system pays no attention to."


But even the optional courses that have been approved cannot be chosen by pupils or taught as they would like them to be. Horia Onita:

 "Unfortunately, not many schools choose these optional courses as they should, through a simple majority. Pupils and parents chose these courses from a portfolio that includes the courses that the school is allowed to propose. Unfortunately, this portfolio does not include subjects such as legal education or architecture, because most schools propose only classical subjects, for their teachers' work load to be complete."


Recently, the Education Ministry has initiated a public debate on the framework curriculum for secondary education, which includes more optional courses than before.



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Publicat: 2016-04-20 12:51:00
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