School holidays – fewer, but longer

Students will have fewer holidays in the next school year, as the break between semesters will be eliminated.

This is just one of the changes announced on Tuesday by the Minister of Education, Daniel Funeriu, to the structure of next year.

The good news for students is that the winter and spring vacations will be one week longer.

The changes announced on Tuesday don’t change the number of school days, but only the structure of the year 2011-2012.

According to the Minister of Education, Daniel Funeriu, the future school year will continue to be organized on semesters.

The first semester will start on 12 September and end on 23 December 2011, while the second semester will start on 16 January and continue until 22 June.

Daniel Funeriu explained the reasons why he decided to eliminate the inter-semesters break.

"It was a breach. The children, after the winter holiday would go to school, then have another vacation, so I took these decisions after also consulting the National Council of Students, and I believe it is rational to always start school on a Monday, to end it on a Friday, to have the three-weeks winter holiday and two-weeks spring break", Daniel Funeriu stated.

Another novelty is that in the week before the spring break classes will be replaced by extracurricular activities.

The program, called "A different school", will comprise the same number of courses as normal week would have.

The new decisions regarding the structure of the school year have already sparked discontent among parents.

The President of the National Federation of Parents’ Associations, Adrian Topor, announced the changes made public today will affect the schedule of entrance examinations.

"The two semesters become unbalanced, in the sense that the second semester is prolonged with almost a month and a week. Moving towards summer, the school will have to ensure thermal conditions and, why not, the needed mineral water."

"Also, we will move forward into the summer with the final exams, in the period when the heat load will be considerable", Adrian Topor declared.

Even if the minister of education expressed his optimism with regards to the stability of this new structure, it remains to be seen whether this will go with the new curriculum, which is about to be enforced at the beginning of the school year 2012-2013.

Translated by: Manuela Stancu
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University