New school year begins in Romania with changes to structure, curriculum
Over two and a half million students returned to classes on Monday, September 11, in Romania. The 2023-2024 school year will have 36 weeks and is structured into 5 modules, giving students five vacations.
The five modules are as follows:
- Module 1 - September 11 to October 28, followed by the autumn break
- Module 2 - November 6 to December 22, followed by the winter break
- Module 3 - January 8 to February 9, or later in the same month. There is also a skiing vacation from February 12 to March 3. Dates will be decided by each county school inspectorate
- Module IV - February 19 or 26, or March 4, to April 26, followed by the spring break
- Module V - May 8 to June 21, followed by the summer break
For most students, the starting school year is 36 weeks long. However, for 12th-grade classes, 13th-grade evening classes, and reduced-frequency classes, the school year lasts only 34 weeks and ends on June 7. For 8th-grade classes, the school year lasts for 35 weeks and ends on June 14, 2024. For vocational high school classes and professional education classes, the school year lasts for 37 weeks and ends on June 28, 2024, according to Digi24.
The legal holidays part of the 2023-2024 school year include October 5 (Education Day), November 30 (Saint Andrew), and December 1 (National Day of Romania), among others.
The School's Out Program and Green Week Program will take place from September 11, 2023, to April 26, 2024, in intervals of 5 consecutive working days, planned at the discretion of the educational institution. The two programs will be scheduled during different course intervals.
Between June 11 and June 14, registration for the National Evaluation takes place. On June 25, the Romanian Language and Literature exam is held, followed on June 27 by the Mathematics exam. The initial results are posted on June 28, 2024.
The Baccalaureate exam begins between June 17 and June 19, 2024, when the evaluation of oral communication skills in Romanian takes place.
The new school year also brings a new subject to the core curriculum for high school students. "Jewish History. The Holocaust," will be taught in the 11th grade for regular and vocational high school education, evening high school education, the technological pathway, and in the 12th grade for special vocational education, special upper secondary education, the technological pathway, and evening high school education, the theoretical pathway.
For the introduction of this subject, the Ministry of Education collaborated with the National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust in Romania "Elie Wiesel," which withdrew from the working group earlier this year say they have not been consulted since April, and with members of the National Museum of the History of the Jews and the Holocaust in Romania, according to HotNews.
Starting from the school year 2025-2026, subjects such as "The History of Communism in Romania" and "The History, Enslavement, and Deportation of the Roma," an optional subject for both middle school and high school, will also be introduced, as per the new pre-university education law that came into effect on September 3.
The start of the new school year is not without issues. Nearly 3,700 educational institutions, out of a total of approximately 7,100, begin the school without the mandatory fire safety authorization, a situation that has continued for years. In practice, a building can operate without a fire safety permit, and half of the educational institutions in Romania, not to mention thousands of businesses, hundreds of hospitals, and tourist facilities, operate in this way, according to Ziarul Financiar.
(Photo source: Inquam Photos/Octav Ganea)
