The People’s Advocate announced on Tuesday that he had informed the Constitutional Court about an article in the law on pre-university education, which stipulates that merit scholarships are awarded to “a minimum of 30% of students in each class”. “A merit scholarship should be an expression of selection based on the criterion of meritocracy,” the People’s Advocate argued, in the context of a situation where students with GPAs below 2, 3 or 4 receive merit scholarships.

The notice of unconstitutionality, formulated by the People’s Advocate, refers to the article of Law 198/2023 on pre-university education, which provides that “scholarships for students of pre-university education are allocated from the budget of the Ministry of Education, namely:

• a. merit scholarships for at least 30% of students in each middle and high school class in the pre-university education division, according to the criteria and conditions established by the framework methodology.

“Unconstitutionally regulates the opportunity for students with low grades to receive an honors scholarship”

In an appeal to the Constitutional Court, the People’s Advocate notes that, according to its content, this legislative provision “steals the legal nature of the merit scholarship, creating prerequisites for students with poor academic performance to receive a merit scholarship”:

• “Merit scholarship is defined by Art. 108 para. (4) the law as a form of stimulating students’ success.
• Or, despite providing merit scholarships, the criticized provisions unconstitutionally regulate the ability of students with low academic grades to receive merit scholarships, their only performance being that they enter the top 30% of each high school and high school. school class”.

“Merit scholarship should be an expression of selection based on the criterion of meritocracy”

The People’s Advocate also says that the results of school performance evaluation are expressed through evaluation, that evaluation in education also means selection, and selection involves identifying the best through the issuing of evaluations:

• “One of the important functions of assessment is selection function, among many others such as educational function, feedback function, certification function, competition function, etc.
• Selection based on quality criteria (grades) has a great impact on the student’s position in the school.
• The need for selection arises because there is a competitive school and social world. But, at the same time, it is necessary to talk about reasonable selection, according to clear criteria, and not just according to the percentage of students.
• Lack of selectivity can cause students, parents and other educational factors to think about the insufficient quality of the educational process.
• A merit scholarship should be an expression of selection based on a criterion of meritocracy specific to the public education system.”

In an appeal to the Constitutional Court, the People’s Advocate also notes that awarding merit scholarships to at least 30% of students in each grade of secondary and high school in the pre-university education unit “determines legal insecurity that leads to a violation of the right to education, in the context of which a simple reference to the percentage , in the absence of a criterion for evaluating success and school merit, is devoid of any legal logic.”

• You can read the full message of the People’s Advocate here

More than 5,200 students with GPAs between 4 and 5 and more than 150 with GPAs below 2 receive scholarships

Nearly 8,500 students with GPAs below 5 receive scholarships, and of those, 5,250 have GPAs between 4.00 and 4.99, and another 2,382 have GPAs between 3.00 and 3.99. There are also 158 students with GPAs below 2 who receive merit scholarships, according to data sent in November by the Ministry of Education.

More than 461,700 students received merit scholarships in October, according to data sent by the District School Inspectorates/School Inspectorates of Bucharest, the Ministry of Education reported.

Depending on the award criteria (average annual number/average number of entrants), centralized data shows:

• 82.78% of merit scholarships are awarded to students who fall in the average range of 8.00-10.00, 52.55% of merit scholarships are awarded for results obtained in the average range of 9.50-10 00.
• There are 242,665 beneficiary students with GPAs between 9.50 and 10, 73,106 with GPAs between 9.00 and 9.49, and 66,492 students with GPAs between 8 and 8.99.
• 8.74% of total merit scholarships go to students with a GPA between 5.00 and 7.99, and 1.84% of total scholarships go to students with a GPA below 5.00.
• Compared to the total number of school scholarships (over 1,289,000), scholarships awarded to schools in this tranche are 0.66%.
• 8,494 students who have GPAs below 5 are on merit scholarships, and of those, 5,250 have GPAs between 4.00 and 4.99, and another 2,382 have GPAs between 3.00 and 3.99.
• 6.64% of merit scholarships are awarded for prize places at district or all-Ukrainian stages of educational and extracurricular Olympiads/competitions.

Ministry of Education: “Aims for merit scholarships for the top 30% of students in each grade are aimed at encouraging individualized learning”

The Ministry of Education has responded to criticism of merit scholarships for students with GPAs below 5, arguing that merit scholarships are awarded for academic performance and that the merit scholarship, which replaces the merit scholarship and the previous year’s scholarship, encourages “individual scholastic progress” . .

“We reiterate that the purpose of the merit scholarships, which are awarded to the top 30% of students in each class, in order of decreasing GPA/entry average, is to encourage individual learning, to encourage constructive competition in each grade of the gymnasium. and secondary schools in Romania, reducing social inequality, as well as improving the national average of the results obtained by students, taking into account different learning contexts, both in national exams and in international tests,” the Ministry of Education stated.

In the 2022-2023 academic year, more than 260,500 merit scholarships and more than 92,000 scholarships were awarded, and the number of social scholarships almost doubled – more than 738,800 in this academic year compared to 389,490 social assistance scholarships in the previous academic year. year

From the 2023-2024 academic year, the amount of scholarships has been increased:

• merit scholarship: from 200 lei/month to 450 lei/month;
• social assistance: from 200 lei/month to 300 lei/month;
• technology grant: from 200 lei/month to 300 lei/month.

More than 2.9 million students started the 2023-2024 school year.