Context. Education Minister Sorin Campeanu is experiencing a period of political hyperactivity. The unusual jump in his career can be explained by the fact that President Iohannis’ time in Cotrocen is coming to an end, and his project “Educated Romania” is described as “the starting point for everything that the real project of the country should mean, […] the foundation on which we can build Romania for the next 100 years”, we have not been shown so far, except for a report written in a wooden language that is impossible to digest.

Mihai Damian is a lecturer at the Faculty of Mathematics in Strasbourg

The wait is officially over with the new education bill signed by Minister Campeanu. But before we talk about what is written there, we must emphasize that the starting point was chosen poorly. And not even the characters who started it. Mr. Campeanu’s boss, General-Prime Minister Chuka, is suspected of plagiarizing his doctoral thesis and managed to avoid the merits of the case. Mr. Campeanu himself has a dubious PhD, which a committee from the University of Agricultural Sciences (where Mr. Campeanu was chancellor) declared “reference” and “updated” and then decided in the next paragraph that it should not be submitted to another institution for review. So, secret reference work. It doesn’t really look like a solid foundation to build on for a century. In this context, some of the provisions of Campeanu’s project, such as the abnormal possibility to renounce the title of doctor, were naturally interpreted as an attempt to amnesty his fellow plagiarists. And in general, almost everything written in the law was severely criticized by both public opinion and people in the system. Not always right or at least with good arguments, as far as I’m concerned. Let’s take the provision that abolishes the gymnasium criterion for admission to secondary school. This was met with a flurry of criticism: “The collapse of the last vestiges of interest in grammar school”… “no justification in terms of the interest of education or the interest of the pupil” or even “communist cough”. nostalgia”. Some of these criticisms, coming from so-called experts in the field, I was somewhat surprised to see some great confusion even in the relevant arguments. That is why I am writing this text.

The first confusion: evaluation versus competition. One of the critical arguments is that the two cycles, middle school and high school, cannot be “disconnected” so that the results of the first are normal for entering the second. Those who say something like this miss the fundamental difference between rating knowledge that is absolutely normal both during the cycle and at its end competition selection On the other hand, we have high schools (or colleges) that parents think are the best and where they would like to enroll their children. We do not discuss the reasons here, they are known and mostly objective. Therefore, it is logical that there will be more registered places than available, and as a result, a selection must be made. Selection means establishing a hierarchy between candidates, which is not the case with assessment, where in principle you only get a pass or fail grade. But first of all, the choice refers to the regime obligatory equal testing conditions for all participants, which means no anything the score can be used in the competition. The Romanian language does not help us much in this story, calling indiscriminately examination and entrance, which is competitive, and bachelor, which is evaluation. But those in the system must at least make this important distinction. The fact that this does not happen is also confirmed by:

The second confusion: the role of teachers and the role of grades. I read for example:

“Minister Kimpeanu’s concern should have been to make assessments relevant, professionalize teachers, standardize assessments and criteria” etc etc

or

“So instead of reforming high school assessments to make them relevant and fair, we’re doing away with high school entrance exams.”

I’m sorry, but those who write these lines do not understand either the role of teachers or the role of their grades. The teacher’s goal is not to establish a hierarchy even among the students of the class he teaches, let alone between them and other classes. The teacher must impart a predetermined set of knowledge to as many students as possible in the class. His work should be judged primarily by the results obtained by a large mass of students, not by his ability to produce peaks and hierarchies. And compulsory education as a whole should be evaluated in the same way. I know that in a system with medalists and Olympians, it’s not necessarily obvious on first reading, but perhaps a comparison with a driving instructor or a swimming instructor helps: we don’t expect them to make rankings. The role of grades follows from this: they are an assessment of the extent to which the student has mastered relevant knowledge and No student rating element. Therefore, notes cannot be “relevant” in the sense that the critics above demand, they are simply not designed to be. Of course, I will be reproachfully told that where there is no competition, socialism, stupid communism and so on. I’m just not saying that competition is bad: a good teacher can use it effectively (only) as long as it serves the purpose stated above.

Therefore, grades from one cycle should in no case be used as a criterion for the entrance competition for the next. They do not meet the mandatory criterion of fairness for any competition. There are many arguments. As a teacher, I don’t treat all students the same, for example, I may deal more with a student who is behind for various reasons and even give him a (slightly) higher grade than he deserves to encourage him to continue his efforts to catch up. Or, on the contrary, it is more strict to evaluate a capable student who no longer works with such effort. And classes may differ from each other. I will give more difficult subjects and therefore grade a better class more harshly than a bad one if such grading causes great disappointment. If these things seem unfair to you, I suggest you re-read the important passage above about the purpose of the entire taresana. But even supposing that I give the same grade, if in the same subject I first give a student a 6 and then a 10 on the second assessment, and give another an 8 twice, then the former is said to have mastered the subject better than the latter, although they have the same average values. Then the teachers also differ from each other, some are stricter, others are more lenient. Otherwise, there would be no need for strict grading scales in the case of various national assessments. After all, schools differ from each other, I don’t think it’s worth arguing why.

It is important to emphasize that all these considerations are general, they do not apply to the Romanian system. Known household problems are added to them. Namely, the fact that using high school grades as a selection criterion put enormous pressure on parents to force their children to meditate from the beginning of the high school cycle. Because since the first grade of student 6 in the example above, parents, alarmed that “he’s screwing up his grade,” are looking for a solution. The best solution, obviously, is meditation with the class teacher, that is, a disguised form of bribery. Artificially inflated grades, a system strangled by meditations, therefore unequal dependence on parental resources, and – most seriously – the specter of corruption lurking behind every classroom door, are the consequences of the use of admissions grades.

Appropriate criticism. I do not hide that there are valid objections to the return of the entrance exam (more precisely, the competition) as the only criterion for enrolling students in higher education institutions. It is said that students will study only those subjects in which they pass the exam. But we can imagine a system in which exams can be taken in other subjects as well (for example, by choice). It is said to be a unique exam with too many stakes for students who are too young. There are two aspects here. Let’s start with age: a solution already proposed by former minister Daniel Funeriu would be to add one year to the gymnasium cycle and subtract one year from the high school cycle. Along with the restoration of quality professional education, something useful would come. The second point of criticism is the lack of a second chance for a candidate who, say, for example, had a medical or other problem on D-Day and would therefore be unfairly penalized. Of course, we can compare his situation to that of a student who had various problems in the 5th grade, and his bad average is sure to punish him even if he makes an effort later. But I don’t want to run away from criticism; perhaps a second session should be explored which would add a small percentage of students (<5%) to good secondary schools. More generally, and in relation to both aspects, a good system should not govern rigid selection, but should contain "passageways" through which students who have lost their chance of being selected at their preferred school can gain access to the next competition. Read the whole article and comment. on Contributors.ro.