National Assessment of eighth graders started

Over 220,000 eight graders had on Monday the first test of the National Assessment, namely the Romanian language and literature.
Students will be assigned to schools based on the National Assessment scores and the gymnasium grades

Depending on these grades and the student’ options, the assignation is done in descending order.

From a technical standpoint, the assignation system ensures that each school will take students who have requested this thing and have the highest grades.

One controversial aspect of the assignation is the fact that the gymnasium grades, which represent half of the final score can vary greatly from school to school, especially when considering schools in different counties.

Director General in the Ministry of Education, Manuela Preoteasa, said that the role of the National Assessment is to make a ranking of children at this time, a ranking that is not final, a ranking which can change during high school.

"They have four years to prove that they are very good and can study wherever they want", Manuela Priestess also said.

A lot of parents tend to choose instead of eighth grade graduate the best schools in the city or county.

In this way, parents believe they can ensure a better future for their children, Stefan Vlaston, director of the Association for Education and Research "Edu Cer" stated.

"Parents tend to disregard the advice of psychologists and masters and are obsessed with their students to reach a higher rank."

"Only that, slowly, the state emerged as the main employer in the labour market and it was not too interested in what’s hiding behind a diploma and not the parents realized that private employers do not necessarily take into account a degree and they’d rather give the candidate a test, an interview, a period of six months or two or three weeks on trial, so this started to produce a shift in the parents mental infrastructure, otherwise it doesn’t work", Stefan Vlaston said.

Although the labour market has changed significantly over the past two decades, graduating with higher grades is considered as a guarantee in Romania so that an individual can be employed.

Translated by: Iulia Florescu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University