The OECD Director of Education on the education system in Romania: Didactic practices and the way teachers think must be changed

The effects of the educational reforms that Romania will introduce will not be visible in the very near future, says the education director of the OECD, Andreas Schleicher.

He explained, today, in Bucharest, that it is not only about changing the school curriculum, but also about changing didactic practices and the way teachers think.

Andreas Schleicher: The gap between Romania and other performing countries is not for students from wealthy backgrounds. Romanians who come from privileged backgrounds do quite well in the PISA test. The biggest gap is for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. Another thing would be to make teaching attractive to both students and teachers. Other educational systems offer teachers interesting neighborhoods. If you do a particularly good job as a teacher, you are recognized in society and valued for it. It is easy to make teaching more financially attractive by paying teachers better salaries, but it is much harder to offer them a truly compelling job where they work with a high degree of professional autonomy but also in a collaborative culture.

Producer: The Minister of Education, Ligia Deca, mentioned that measures are underway to increase the quality of early education, as there are now many 15-year-olds who do not pass level 2 in the PISA tests, which means that they cannot use the knowledge in real life theories acquired in school.

We remind you that Romania is ranked penultimate in the European Union, and overall 45th out of the total of 81 countries participating in this assessment, with an average score significantly lower than the OECD average.

In this context, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu announced that in 2024 there will be the largest budget allocation in history for Education, but he asked the Minister of Education to come up with solutions regarding the performance criteria in education.

Translated by: Radu Matei