Preparatory class, debated within court

The Education Ministry states that it is necessary, because almost 20% of children don’t attend kindergarten and they need to be prepared for school, and from now on they can be assigned even directly in the second class if their psycho-somatic development is proper.

Many parents, but also teachers, contest though the project, inclusively within the court, sustaining that there is neither schedule, teachers, neither suitable places for this.

The functioning methodology of this preparatory class, adopted by injunction of Education Ministry, was contested within the court by a group of parents, and Friday, the Bucharest Court of Appeal programmed the first term.

The parents who contested the decision said that the ministry is not ready yet for applying this injunction, the schedule doesn’t exist, neither textbooks, nor suitable places, or enough teachers.

The state secretary Oana Badea declared Thursday that schools will be equipped with special furniture, and the schedule is majorly finalized and it will be publicly debated next month.

Next week will begin the debates with the unions regarding this problem.

Oana Badea also made some specifications regarding the method of children’s assignation.

“I guarantee that there exist a transparent procedure, equally distant from every child when a competition exist where there are more requests than the positions the school has” , declared Oana Badea.

She also stated that parents could assign their children even directly in the second class if these will pass a series of evaluation tests.

Translated by Alexandra-Diana Mircea, MTTLC, Bucharest University