ROMANIAN SCHOOL SYSTEM 2009 PROF MARIA EUZEFINA DRAGOMIR

ROMANIAN SCHOOL SYSTEM 2009 PROF. MARIA EUZEFINA DRAGOMIR

ROMANIAN SCHOOL SYSTEM • According to the Law on Education adopted in 1995, the Romanian Educational System is regulated by the Ministry of Education and Research Each level has its own form of organization and is subject to different legislation: • Kindergarten is optional between 3 and 6 years old. • Schooling starts at age 6 (sometimes 7 ), and is compulsory until the 10 th grade (which usually corresponds to the age of 17 or 16).

ROMANIAN SCHOOL SYSTEM – Primary school comprises two 4 grade periods: • Elementary school (Şcoala Primară) — grades I to IV • Gymnasium (Gimnaziu) — grades V to VIII – High school (Liceu) — four or five grades (grades IX to XII/XIII) – Vocational education (Învăţământ profesional şi tehnic), which can prepare students for careers that are based in manual or practical activities.

ROMANIAN SCHOOL SYSTEM In 2009, some 4. 4 million of the population was enrolled in school: • 650. 000 in kindergarten • 3. 11 million (14% of population) in primary and secondary level, • 650. 000 (3% of population) in tertiary level (universities).

MINORITY , RELIGIOUS, AND PRIVATE EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS • In districts where a linguistically-defined ethnic minority exceeds 10% of the total population, free public schooling is provided in that language: some of the classes are taught in that language, and the language and literature of the ethnic group is "the main language studied", although Romanian remains compulsory. There are classes (or whole schools, depending on the existing population) for different linguistic minorities: Hungarian, German, Romani, Polish, Ukrainian, Serbian, Greek, Bulgarian, Czech, Turkish, Slovak, Ukrainian and Russian. • .

MINORITY , RELIGIOUS, AND PRIVATE EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS • Since 1990, private and religious education at all levels have been accepted and partially funded by the state, through the Ministry of Education and Research, provided they respect some ministerial guidelines. Note that it is impossible to open a school without following the ministerial guidelines, programs and curricula — so, in practice, all Romanian schools get at least some limited funding from the state

ROMANIAN SCHOOL SYSTEM • Teacher-student relations are quite formal, but this formalism has evolved in the past few years to a friendly, but respectful relationship. This is due to the difference of mentality between generations. While elder teachers usually demand respect and are exigent, some younger ones, who better understand what it is like to be in school, are friendly and understanding, rather than strict. • Teacher-Parent relations are also formal, with teachers calling parents to school only for administrative issues at the beginning of the semester, and for reading the marks at the end of the semester. Those teachers able to break the formalism and reach out to the students are very highly regarded both by officials and by students.

ROMANIAN SCHOOL SYSTEM • Some schools have a uniform for the first four grades, either the Ministry standardized issue or one of their own design. Years V-VIII almost never have a school uniform, nor any other dress code (but rulebooks provide for basic decency). • There is no school lunch in most schools, as school either ends before lunch or starts after lunch, although few schools have an afterschool program, that may include lunch.

ROMANIAN SCHOOL SYSTEM • Both big city schools and rural schools may organize clubs, but this is left to teachers. Dance clubs, school sports, traditions and story telling, drama, music, applied physics or chemistry and even math clubs are popular, depending on the teachers organizing. However, participation in these clubs will not be mentioned on any diploma or certificate, nor is it required. Contests between schools exist, as well as nationwide

ROMANIAN SCHOOL SYSTEM • Additionally, many Physical Education teachers organize intramural competitions and one or two day trips to the mountains. Other teachers usually also organize such trips and even whole holidays during the summer - camps (tabere) - this being a Romanian school tradition. However, field trips or research trips are not common (one or two every year), and are usually visits to museums or trips to natural habitats of various animals or plants, to gather information for a school

CURRICULUM IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS • The Romanian curriculum is known as highly academic but rigid. There are up to 15 compulsory subjects (usually 8 -13) and up to 5 optional subjects (usually 1 or 2). For the duration of the elementary school, each student must take: • 8 years of mathematics, Romanian, music, art and physical education • up to 8 years of religion (any belief accepted, if a teacher cannot be provided in school, a certificate from any representative of the faith is accepted, if atheist or agnostic, another subject must be taken) • 6 years of geography and history,

CURRICULUM IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS • 7 or 8 years in the first foreign language (usually English, French, or German) • 3– 4 years in the second foreign language (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian or Portuguese) • 3 years of Civic education, physics and biology • 2 years of Chemistry, • 2 years of IT although in many places this subject can be optionally studied all the 8 years of elementary schools).

HIGH SCHOOL • There are five types of high schools in Romania allowing access to university, based on the type of education offered and their academic performance. All of these allow for a high school diploma, access to the Bacalaureat exam and therefore access to University studies. the choice of high school curriculum does not limit the choices for university. For example, a graduate of a Mathematics-Computer Programming (Real) Department of a National College may apply to a Language Department of a University without any problem.

ROMANIAN SCHOOL SYSTEM • However, because of the subjects taught, the quality of education and the requirements for admission in universities, artificial barriers may appear: for example, a graduate of a Humane and Social Studies Department will find it very hard to apply for a Mathematics Department at a University because the admission exam for that university department requires knowledge of calculus, a subject not taught in Humanities and Social Studies. But there is no formal limitation: if that student manages to understand calculus, he or she is free to apply.

ROMANIAN SCHOOL SYSTEM • High school enrolment is conditioned on passing the National Test and participating in the National Computerized Repartition. • High school studies are four years in length, two compulsory (9 th and 10 th year), two non-compulsory (11 th and 12 th year). There are no exams between the 10 th and the 11 years. There is also a lower frequency program taking 5 years for those wishing to attend high school after abandoning at an earlier age. • National College (Colegiu Naţional) — the most prestigious high schools in Romania, most are each part of at least one international program such as Cervantes, SOCRATES, Eurolikes etc. All are "theoretical" (see below). Entering in one of these national colleges is usually a sure ticket for a good university scholarship.

ROMANIAN SCHOOL SYSTEM • Military College (Colegiu Militar) — there are 3 high schools administered by the Romanian Army. They are considered extremely strict and legally they have the same regime as army units, being considered military installations with all students being members of the army and abiding army rules and regulations • Economic College or Technical College (Colegiu Economic or Colegiu Tehnic) — A high school with relatively good results and with an academic program based on technical education or services

ROMANIAN SCHOOL SYSTEM • Liceu (Standard High school) — An average high school, providing one of the available academic programs. The type of academic program offered is added after this designation • Grup Şcolar — A group of two schools — a high school (usually offering academic programmes in the field of technical or services education) and a Craft and Trade School.

high schools • All the rules and regulations of elementary school apply here. Uniforms are a local issue, according with each school's policies. Few high schools have uniforms, and in case they do, these are only used on special occasions (such as festivities, conferences, sporting contests etc. ). Many high schools have their own radio stations, monthly or biannual magazines etc. • Unlike the elementary school, there are no clear guidelines for marking. That means that typically grade averages are not comparable betweens schools or even between different teachers in the same school.

Romanian Baccalaureate • High school students graduating from a College, Liceu or Grup Şcolar must take the National Baccalaureate Exam (Examenul Naţional de Bacalaureat — colloquially known as the bac). • The Bacalaureat comprises 2 or 3 oral examinations and 4 or 5 written examinations, usually spanning on the course of one and a half weeks in late June and September. It is a highly centralized, national exam. Usually the exam papers are taken to a centralized marking facility, sometimes even in another city, under police guard

Romanian Baccalaureate • Except for the languages exams, the subjects are provided in any language desired by the candidate (demands can be made "on the spot" for a number of languages — Hungarian, German and Romanian subjects are available in all high schools nationwide, with other languages in areas where the respective language is spoken, while for other languages the request must be filed alongside the registration form, two months in advance). Braille can

Romanian Baccalaureate • Each exam (Proba) is marked from 1 to 10 with 10 being the best, using two decimals for written exams (e. g. 9. 44 or 9. 14 is a valid mark) and an integer for an oral exam. Each exam is corrected and graded by two separate correctors (no computers are involved, as this is not a standardized test) agreeing on the mark based on a nationwide guideline. The total mark for the Bacalaureat is the arithmetic mean average of the six or eight marks obtained (0. 01 precision). To pass, a student must obtain an average score of at 6

Romanian Baccalaureate • The Baccalaureate is a requirement when enrolling in a university, because, technically, without passing it, the student is not a high school graduate, but, usually it counts for almost nothing in the admission scores (in most universities, 0 -20% is the norm). In the best possible situation, it makes up half of the total university admission score, but only in the most undesired departments of the small, backwater universities. Given the extremely atypical Romanian university admission system (usually another exam making up for the rest of the process), these percentages mean even less.

Teacher education: Training of pre-primary and primary/basic school teachers • Pre-primary teachers and primary school teachers are trained in pedogogical high schools. - Training of secondary school teachers • Secondary-school teachers for lower secondary education need a degree from short term higher education and Secondaryschool teachers for upper secondary a degree from long term higher education. All the above mentioned categories of teachers must have completed the pedagogical module (during university courses or at least

Specific concepts of the QUALITY ASSURANCE system in Romania • The quality of education is the total number of features of a study program and of its provider, through which the beneficiaries’ expectations, as well as quality standards are assured. • The assessment of educational quality is constituted by the multi-criteria based examination of the extent to which an organization providing education and its program reach the reference standards.

Specific concepts of the QA system in Romania • When quality assessment is supplied by the same organization providing education, it turns into an internal assessment. • When quality assessment is supplied by a national or international agency, it turns into an external assessment.

Quality assurance in education • Quality assurance is realized through a set of actions aiming at developing the institutional ability to establish, plan and implement study programs which help beneficiaries confide in the fact that the organization providing education achieves all quality standards.

Quality assurance in education … • Quality assurance reflects the ability of an organization providing education to offer learning programs, according to the asserted standards and it is thus promoted so as to lead to the ongoing improvement of educational quality. • The improvement of educational quality requires ongoing assessment, analysis and corrective action from the organization providing education, based on selecting and adapting the most suitable procedures, as well as on the selection and implementation of the most relevant reference standards.

QA Processes Quality in education is assured through the following processes: • The planning and concrete realization of the expected results of learning; • Monitoring results; • Internal assessment of results; • External assessment of results; • The ongoing improvement of results in education. The components and processes of quality assurance and the relationships between them differ according to the following: • The learning or qualification level, whichever the case may be; • The type of organization that provides education; • The type of study program.

The external assessment of educational Quality • Assessment of the institutional ability of the organization providing education. • Assessment of the educational efficiency of the organization providing education. • Assessment of quality management at the institutional level. • Assessment of the quality of offered study programs.

The external assessment of educational Quality • Assessment of the accordance between the internal evaluation and the real situation. • Comparative trans-institutional assessment of the same type of study program offered by different organizations providing education.

ARACIS – ARACIP • In order to undertake an external assessment of quality, two agencies are established: Agenţia Română de Asigurare a Calităţii în învăţământul Superior (The Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Higher Education), ARACIS, and Agenţia Română de Asigurare a Calităţii în învăţământul Preuniversitar (The Romanian Agency for Quality Assurance in Pre-University Education), ARACIP is an independent public institution, of national interest, which possesses juridical personality and its own budget. Its location, internal structure and functioning rules and regulations are established by the Government, as ARACIP suggested.

The internal assessment of quality – Quality Assurance at institutional level • At the level of each organization providing education in Romania, a commission for quality assessment and assurance is established. • The organization providing education develops and adopts the strategy and functioning rules of the commission for quality assessment and assurance. • The organization’s leader is directly responsible for the quality of provided education. • The commission for quality assessment and assurance is made of 3 to 9 members. Its

The internal Quality Assurance • After having obtained the temporary functioning authorization, the organization that provides education implements the mechanism of internal quality assurance and writes reports on the internal assessment of educational quality which are sent each year to ARACIP • After having received the accreditation, the annual reports of internal quality assessment are sent to ARACIP, answering the agency request or its

INSIGHT INTO QA INSTITUTIONAL PROCCESSES high SELF EVALUATION Level of use DIAGNOSTIC, COMMUNICATION GOVERNANCE / STRATEGY QUALITY CULTURE low Level of implementation OUTPUTS / REPORTS high

Quality culture • External environment – Socio-economic factors – Educational policies • Internal quality culture depend on the operating methods in the institution Long-term policies Cooperative efforts and dialogue Innovation Identity Culture of reflection

Self - evaluation • self-evaluation is an institutional political tool – It reveals a picture of the institution: values, ways of governance, visions of its mission – It reflects the institutional operating methods of the institution: – The institution pays attention to governance, discussion, strategic policies: QA is a help

Reflections… • Primary responsibility of quality lies with institution ≠ sole responsibility of the institution • Links quality assurance - selfevaluation – A good self-evaluation does not automatically mean a high level of internal quality culture… • Strategy for QA or strategy before QA?

Reflections… Transparency vs self-evaluation – Shall HEIs reveal everything in a written report? • Does self-evaluation reveal the reality of an institution? – Is self-evaluation capable of addressing every challenges met by the institutions? •

Thank You very much for your attention !