The Ministry of Education and Research has announced an additional test of the secondary school graduation exams, which will be held during August 19-23 to offer students a third chance to pass the exams. Minister Dan Perciun told a news conference that after monitoring the conduct of exams in eight districts and the external assessment of one third of the test papers in Chisinau, the exam pass rate in some districts decreased from 100% to 64%-92%, IPN reports.
“If we had replicated this exercise held in eight districts throughout the country, we would have seen similar results everywhere. This speaks about the fact that the exam, as a whole, does not really reflect students’ skills and knowledge and hides the reality, and the entire educational system participates in this process of hiding the reality, mimicking the quality in essence,” stated the official.
Dan Perciun noted that the results, especially in these eight districts, are an alarming signal for the Ministry, for the entire society, for the institutions where the exercise took place. “At the national level, we have a decrease in the pass rate this year: in the mathematics exam – from 99% last year to 95%, in the Romanian language exam – from 98.8% last year to 98.2%, in the history exam – from 99.7% in 2023 to 98.8%. At the national level, it may seem that this decrease, especially in mathematics, is not a very pronounced one, but behind these figures there are children who have not received all the necessary support during the nine years to be able to pass an exam that, in principle, according to our expectations, should have seen a pass rate of one hundred percent,” said the minister.
Starting next year, centers will be organized to host the secondary school graduation exams according to the model of the Baccalaureate exams, and the test papers will be graded in a centralized way. “We will apply essentially the same rules as those for the Baccalaureate exams to the 9th grade, except for the surveillance cameras,” said the minister, adding that the continuous training programs for teachers will be reoriented towards increasing the quality of teaching.
Dan Perciun also said that next year, with the support of the World Bank, 6,000 9th gardeners will gain access to free additional mathematics lessons. These are disadvantaged children, who are most likely to experience difficulties in passing the exam. Some 30-40 extra hours per child will be taught to small groups.
National Agency for Curriculum and Assessment director Lilia Ivanov said that the national exams, whether they are Baccalaureate exams or secondary or primary school graduation exams, must be organized correctly, honestly and impartially.
