The OECD report for Romania in 2024 on the topic of national education is a work of almost a hundred pages, in which the pros and cons of the Romanian education system are analyzed in the famous, cold, neutralizing, aseptic bureaucratic style. Such reports are compiled and updated annually. They are probably a reliable and scientific indicator of what is going well or less happily in Romanian schools.

Overall, as in the case of the famous PISA tests, 40-50% of Romanian students do not have average math skills or understanding of semi-formal text and related basic scientific vocabulary together with all concepts. involved 15.6% of Romanian students did not finish high school on time. We are 20-25% below the average European level of competences and skills properly learned in our schools. The rural environment is responsible for approximately 84% of these poor outcomes. The school dropout rate is one of the highest in the European Union. Of the 5,901 public schools, 22% recorded poor and very poor results annually. Inspectorates and directorates of schools are not evaluated according to these real indicators on the territory, but are unified through administrative centralization practiced hierarchically. Overall school-level inspections are rare, taking decades, although the law stipulates a maximum interval of 5 years for each individual school unit.

Although Law on pre-university education No. 198/2023 provides extended powers to ARACIP, which takes over many functions of inspectors, they continue to exist in form and internal organization before the law, the transparency and validity of the selection criteria of the national body of inspectors that exist before the pandemic and until 2024, at least unclear and critical. There was no inspector exam for at least five to ten years, although even then the exam was not competitive and fair, but a simulation with the consent of the party.

Careful management of available staff and resources in district inspections with a high failure rate does not exist. Despite the inspection of directors and deputy directors in 2021 and 2022, the real, verified and measured quality of management of educational units leaves much to be desired. Specific courses and topics have not been implemented, apart from the CRED educational package and a variety of courses to increase the degree of digitization in the public system. There is a sense of silent opposition lurking in the system, which persists despite any declarative opposition from above. Any serious sociological study establishes a high correlation between low-performing schools and high dropout rates and the poorest counties in Romania or the most underdeveloped areas of any county. Where there is development and accumulation of finance, despite the fact that it is unevenly distributed, Romanian schools exceed OECD standards.

The emphasis placed on ARACIP as a reforming institution is striking in the transparency of the proposals, as well as their immediate impossibility to implement them, since inspections are a politicized space and built on networks of nepotism. Given the postponed mission of the inspectors responsible for ARACIP until January 1, 2025, can we expect another wave of politicization of ARACIP itself, in case this dreaded institution really becomes active in the sense of the new law on pre-university education? Romanian education policy will be implemented dead end– the interests of the party and some weak representatives, promoted secretly or openly without any apparent professionalism and honesty. The struggle for power between the district inspectorates and ARACIP will continue in slightly suspicious forms, and no one will cut the Gordian knot in the next period, intensively vascularized by elections. Stability, i.e. preservation status quois the new watchword when war knocks on the eastern door of the European Union.

Furthermore, in addition to those mentioned above, the OECD report highlights the low cost per pupil compared to other European countries. Almost a million students study in rural schools with teachers who do not always have the highest qualifications and, of course, lower than urban schools in terms of continuing professional training. From 2020 to 2023, social subsidies have increased as a national share, but they are still not enough to provide for a family member to some extent.

The retreat of the school network will lead to the merger of schools, as happened in the period 2000-2010, when many rural schools simply disappeared due to demographic decline and emigration to the West. Since then, the number of reports and situations from the secretariats of schools has increased many times, despite the advantages of digitization, they do not always stand out from the point of view of the effectiveness of the information flow.

Principals of Romanian schools are not so much managers as suppliers of bureaucratic documents in waves and with automatic fire. It is long secretarial work, a chore, lost on the spot, without clear rates, except to justify the workload of inspectors. Data sent from schools often does not even make it to the system’s internal reporting pages.

The OECD report mentions that there is no harmonization between the existing salaries according to seniority, degree, merit degree, doctoral bonus, hourly pay, in terms of quality that can be seen in the education of Romanian students and citizens. Also, salaries are modest, between Chile and Estonia globally. A school mentor, an experienced teacher, is called to become the main epistemological link in the system. Educational institutions want to introduce a new teaching degree – honorary teacher.

In the generous and globalist style of the OECD, advice is interjected from the comparative example of other educational systems: New Zealand, Scottish, Irish, Serbian, Welsh, Portuguese, Chilean, American, Dutch, Colombian, Norwegian, Slovak, Austrian, Danish. , in French and Finnish. First, these countries do not have a tradition similar to Romania, with the exception of Serbia and Slovakia, which went through the experience of communism. Second, each of these national education systems faces its own set of problems that have arisen in recent decades in direct proportion to the percentage reduction of the middle class, and are not necessarily role models. Third, Romania’s educational policy is not easily compatible with the standard of living expected of residents of developed or underdeveloped countries in the world.

Looking at all this, the report forgets to mention examples of best practices from the Romanian education system. Here we have the invisible side of the Moon. Despite the criticism of Romanian pre-university education, most of which is undoubtedly justified, we enjoy the elite schools and secondary schools in Romania. Actually, these educational units are the only ones that the Ministry of Education and subordinate institutions take into account during the festive moments, when we politically and administratively deal with the results of public education. Just as 40-50% of graduates show serious deficiencies at the level of requirements between primary and secondary, in the same way, on the antipodes, you can list the list of international medals, which are limited to groups of Olympians in mathematics, computer science, and physics. , robotics, geography, foreign languages, etc. i get them almost every year. 45% of semi-illiterate welcome 0.1% – Olympian patricians and senators – to the arena of school life. If in Ilfov county we cannot talk about a valuable high school with at least decent results, even though this county has the richest population in Romania, the first national colleges in Bucharest are nurseries for students in the most prestigious world universities. Some of the teachers at these prestigious high schools are excellent teachers, often after hours. In an ocean of mediocrity and humble teaching practices, a few islands of excellence rise from the depths in the wealthiest urban centers. The question that we should ask ourselves more often can be formulated as follows: are we not developing a more or less conscious elitism on the one hand, consisting of exhausting extra work and results for personal gain (for a portfolio, merit grading, to satisfy pride, etc.) , for children and teenagers from already favorable social strata, we neglect the average requirements and turn away from most categories of social income in Romania? _Read the entire article and comment on it on Contributors.ro