On September 8, 2023, OME was issued under No. 6238, which governs, among other things, the Scholarship for Educational Merit. We expected some stinginess in the use of public funds in the conditions of a fairly high budget deficit by European standards, but considering that the 2024 election year is knocking on the door, Romanian politicians are tapping their feet and distributing significant sums to vulnerable social categories (the word, unfortunately, is well chosen and used if we think about the hundreds of thousands of parents who are temporarily abroad for work, as well as the nature of the standard of living enjoyed by the majority of Romanian citizens), in other words, a minor country, its golden future, through which a potential voter can be sensitized, to caress gently and, what is no less important, to deceive not even with cynicism, but to drive into a corner with a typical autochthonous shamelessness, outdated among the wicked, which public opinion encourages as a sign of social success. One thing we talk about in Brussels, where we sit back and accept any austerity regime, regardless of the nature of the ideological sources behind the Union’s economic policies, is another thing we do at home, where we move quickly everything that has direct political significance. interest in emergency decisions or government decrees, ministerial orders, etc. The mentality of the Romanian politician is similar to that of the president of the association of owners of apartment buildings in a big city, the president who inflates the stock of available foaming and excessively scented cleaning products for the stairs in the hope that he will clean the floors in his rooms this month. apartment free. “Well, I’m the president for nothing? Let him understand these WHO DOMINION“. Samavolnicia is deeply rooted in the mentality of any temporary nature, but has a certain official authority among Romanians.

Against the background of this rush to issue decisions to obtain political points, the school scholarship is defined as awarding “at least 30% of students in each class of middle and high school in the educational unit” (Article 7, (1) of OME No. 6,238). Students of the 5th grade receive a scholarship depending on “the grades obtained (…) during the first two study periods of the current academic year” (Article 7, (1, b), OME No. 6.238), as well as the 9th grade “in order reduction of secondary or professional education” (Article 7, (1), c), OME No. 6.238). Given the fact that the first two modules have not ended, we would logically expect to encounter two unpleasant situations, both at the same time, but with variable weight as a whole: on the one hand, there are middle school and high school students. whose average indicators slightly exceed the average value of 9.50, and here we mean the minority of educational institutions, which are famous for the number of prize places at Olympiads and school competitions, in this case, up to a quarter of secondary or high school students, the institution can claim the amount of 450 lei per month per capita, on the other hand, there are academic units where academic performance is modest, and 30% of merit scholarships may include students with grades below 5. Furthermore, it is not difficult to imagine a hypothetical hybrid case in which a student from a poor class receives a merit scholarship with a general with an annual average score of 6 to 7, and other colleagues from the same educational institution, but from other classes, with an average score of up to 9.50 (the success threshold established in previous years), do not fall into the first 30% of the hierarchically organized averages of the class , to which they belong. All these legitimate assumptions, which contain a high index of banality, undoubtedly occurred to those who drafted and approved the mentioned OME, but the political calculation of easily obtaining votes from an electorate with little hope and a lot of anger was more important for the decision. not only false, but ridiculous in its immediate consequences. How to create a legal framework where average 4 is merit? Educational meritocracy does not mean much in Romania – it is to avoid calling a spade a spade. The domestic labor market is deficient both quantitatively and qualitatively in most sections. An expert with experience working with personnel on the Romanian market could not only confirm, but also support such a historic verdict with many figures, forecasts and even anecdotes. All in all, decreeing educational merit and driving public finances through meaningless ministerial orders is part of the already known, too many times tried and ultimately bankrupt practice of the Romanian state (but can a state go bankrupt when we can instead owe money to international creditor bodies?), on the discretion of democratically elected officials, true, but in the process of being confirmed or rejected in the 2024 election.

But to understand the real dimension of merit scholarships that apply to low-achieving students, cover the latest news that shows us where merit scholarships below 5th grade come from. and students who have just entered secondary school, not just those who have been learning little year after year. A GPA of 4 qualifies them for both an eligible place at secondary school in 2023 and a merit scholarship[1] (I wanted to write average scholarship because mediator to do what merit). It is wonderful that the Romanian education system allows such scores for entering high school. The fault, of course, is the teachers, whose antiquated and unrealistic requirements, not quite adapted to a labor market dominated by high-skilled jobs (sic!), are to blame for such low scores. On the other hand, it is possible that the subject matter of the national assessment could be further reduced on the basis of secondary school entry grades below the standards considered adequate. Thus, the elite national colleges will allow the GPA of the last entry to increase from 9.50 to 9.90, and in the near future to 9.99, a trend that has become increasingly important in the last 15 years, while certain vocational and technical lyceums instead qualifying students with grades below 5 would work with the same students to whom we additionally provide honors scholarships just above this minimum passing score. It is easy to implement this dystopia of educational merit: we lower the standards of the national exam requirements, and thus the percentage of students who study, who end up facing small and insignificant differences in preparation, at the level of tens of hundredths, for admission to a prestigious school. Others, who barely have minimal skills or, in fact, almost none at all, enter secondary school, with the “residual” students, to use the terminology of sociologist Lazar Vlaščanau. And to top it all off, the Romanian government awards merit scholarships to an average of the top 30% in each class. I think we at least have a right to marvel at these deliberate, not random, anomalies that, under the cheerful pressure of the press, someone will correct as they go. After all, educational institutions in Romania have been informed that they have to reduce their budgets as soon as possible and save on the consumption of electricity, water, toilet paper, printing paper and many other papers (at what stage are we learning with digitization?), folders, bibliographs, ink stamps, pens, pencils, erasers and other small things that create a hole in the public budget more than bad management. –

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