The professional baccalaureate, the access to the labour market

In recent years, in June and July, an item of news constantly opens the bulletins: high school students failed again the baccalaureate.

"Graduation rate" - which is the ratio of those who take the exam to those who support it - has deteriorated from year to year, this year the peak being reached, when about one of two candidates passed the BAC.

Those who have not passed the exam are not receive in college and, say the authorities, are not easily employed.

Which is exactly the reason mentioned by the government for the introduction of, starting the school year 2012-2013, the so-called "differentiated Baccalaureate".

Basically, students can support two types of baccalaureate. In addition to the regular BAC, it is introduced an easier one, with less courses to verify.

"Access to jobs"

Introduction the professional baccalaureate would allow the hiring of high school graduates in the labor market, but will not allow them to attend college, says the Minister of Education, Ecaterina Andronescu

"Many young people are unemployed because employers are reluctant when it comes to hiring a high school graduate who failed the baccalaureate" said Mrs. Andronescu.

The solution found in order to solve the situation is to introduce the professional baccalaureate which will allow the hiring of graduates but not the admission to higher education units.

"The measure will be categorically applied also to private universities. The ordinance clearly states that it applies to higher education," specified Ecaterina Andronescu.

The Education Minister stated that the choice of professional, easier, supported baccalaureate, or the national as it is now, remains the options of students and parents.

"Baccalaureate, as it was this year and last year, remains. Accordingly, we add this form, which comes as a help to those wishing to directly enter the labor market.

"So, the professional baccalaureate is the pass to the labor market. The national baccalaureate is an access to higher education," said Ecaterina Andronescu.

The project supported by Ecaterina Andronescu provides that the professional baccalaureate will have in common with the national Baccalaureate the oral exams at Romanian and foreign language as well as at the digital abilities, supported by all graduates at the same time.

After these examinations, the professional baccalaureate will also include the supporting of a project, a practical test and a written exam on entrepreneurship education, discipline common to all schools.

The Minister of Education, Ecaterina Andronescu stressed that a student who has opted for professional baccalaureate can support any time the national one if he wants to attend a university.

Unions “approved the introduction of the professional baccalaureate”

The Secretary of State in the Ministry of Education, Stelian Fedorca, said that the education unions agree with the introduction of national professional baccalaureate.

After 2-3 years we will see if professional baccalaureate helped high school graduates.

The success or failure of this measure will most likely be dictated by the labor market, said on Radio Romania Ciprian Fartusnic, researcher of the Institute of Education Sciences.

"It is obviously that at this point is also needed the intervention to prepare this measure.

"It would take a rigorous analysis of all the elements involved to see the problems that led to the difficult situation faced by many of those who gave baccalaureate this year and last year," said Ciprian Fartusnic.

The researcher at the Institute of Education Sciences believes that students will be satisfied and will capitalize this measure as long as there will be a close connection between everything that means the education world and employers in that of labor.

"It is very possible that the labor market to validate or invalidate such a decision and not the world of education," said Ciprian Fartusnic.

Professional baccalaureate, a kind of "BAC with ID"

Former Minister of Education, Daniel Funeriu, cataloged the professional baccalaureate option as a wrong measure, claiming that by this method the executive wants to take the votes of those who failed the exam.

"It is totally wrong as a kind of “BAC with the ID”. The Baccalaureate must be passed by those who learn.

"The current government wants to give the baccalaureate also to those who do not deserve it. Has anyone asked the over 100,000 students who passed the BAC if they find it normal?

"I think this happens in order to get the votes of those who failed the exam. These people do not understand anything," said Daniel Funeriu for Agerpres.

Former education minister said he hopes the Senate will not vote on the proposal.

According to Daniel Funeriu, through such a measures, those in power manage to "throw in the ridiculous" the baccalaureate degree, about which he says that for two years had become a "pride".

"After I have maintained three years the stability, and I did not change from year to year the baccalaureate, here comes again every minister with experiments that give instability.

"The correct version of the differentiated baccalaureate is provided by the law of education and was supposed to take effect for students entering the ninth grade," added the former minister of education.

The high school graduation level drastically dropped in recent years

The measure of introducing the professional baccalaureate came after two consecutive years, after the introduction of surveillance cameras, the graduation examination of maturity in summer was less than 50 percent.

Thus, at the Baccalaureate summer session of 2011, the first year that the surveillance cameras were introduced, the high school graduation rate was 45.72 percent.

This year, the graduation examination of maturity of the summer session was 44.26 percent lower than the previous year.

In the second session of exam, the pass rate was 24.27 percent.

According to the education ministry, at the session baccalaureate august-September 2012 were 99,442 students enrolled, were present 85,160 students and 20,622 students passed the exam.

The professional baccalaureate is a Romanian invention.

This exam exists also in France, England and Germany.

Translated by Alexandra-Diana Mircea
MTTLC, Bucharest University