Of the more than 177,000 students enrolled in the eighth grade of the school year 2022-2023, 154,600 eventually showed up on June 19 to sit for the first test of the end-of-gymnasium National Assessment – an exam that virtually decides the future of the students: 10%-20% of them go to the good high schools and later to a university.

More students may abandon the testing before the second part of it, which is scheduled for June 21.

The Educated Romania strategy, designed by the Presidency and endorsed by the lawmakers under the form of “a package of laws”, fails to address the negative impact of this exam – on the contrary, it allows for even tighter exams to be organised by the “elite” high schools that concentrate the upper part of the student population and the best teachers.

However, 22,400 students (12.66% of those enrolled in the eighth grade) failed to even sit for the exam, according to Cursdeguvernare.ro. Basically, this means dropping out of school at the age of 14, a situation in which Romania is a champion in the EU: it has the youngest people up to 24 years old (15%) who have not managed to step beyond secondary school.

iulian@romania-insider.com

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