Radio România Internațional

Tag: GRADUATION

  • Draft education laws pending approval

    Draft education laws pending approval

    Submitted for public
    review a few days ago, the new legislative package on education includes the
    under-graduate education bill and the higher education bill, both officially
    endorsed by the government. The main declared goals are to improve the quality
    of public education and reduce functional illiteracy.




    The under-graduate
    education bill provides for compulsory nation-wide evaluations in language and
    communication and in maths and science at the end of the second, fourth and
    sixth grade. High schools will be able to organise admission tests for maximum
    60% of the number of places available, after students have graduated the
    compulsory national evaluation.




    As for the high school
    graduation exam, for humanities students it will include a written test in maths,
    physics, chemistry or biology, while science students will also have to prove
    that they have acquired basic skills in psychology, sociology, logics, economics
    or philosophy.




    The higher education bill
    increases the Ph.D. studies period from three to four years, with post-grad students
    allowed to conduct paid teaching activities.




    The line minister, Ligia
    Deca, told Radio Romania about the most important changes:

    Ligia Deca: In principle, there are reforms aimed at improving the
    quality of public education and at reducing functional illiteracy. This
    includes increasing the performance of teaching staff and improving the outlook
    on and support for the teaching career, with a substantial increase of salaries
    and more respect for teachers in society. Basically, the entire salary scheme
    in public education will start from the average national wage level, so any
    entry-level teacher will have this perspective of a decent salary. We will also
    improve the quality of teachers’ training, by introducing a teaching MA
    programme, 80% of which will consist of practical activities under the guidance
    of a mentor, at various education levels and in various environments, so that
    we may have entry-level teachers who are well trained and prepared for the
    challenges they will be facing in the classroom. There will be an entire series
    of national programmes, one of which will seek to reduce drop-out rates, by
    means of providing school supplies, covering commuting costs, healthy meals for
    over one million children. Support will also be given in the form of remedial
    classes, in order to cover the schooling gaps that unfortunately the pandemic
    years left among our children.




    As Ligia Deca also said, a
    national programme to reduce functional illiteracy will also be in place. By
    means of the educational portfolio and annual testing, this programme seeks to
    ensure that children no longer leave school with inadequate literacy skill
    levels at the PISA test taken at the age of 15. (AMP)

  • Good results in school exams

    Good results in school exams


    For Romania, a country once known for the excellent performances of its education system, the nearly 33 years since the anti-communist revolution meant a steady decline in the quality of schooling, reflecting in results far from its past glory.



    A long line of attempts to reform a system that has so far proved unable to keep up with the times has brought confusion among children, teachers and parents alike. And the frequent changes operated by successive education ministers have led to exam pass rates that are well below the expectations and goals of decision-makers.



    Education changes with technology, knowledge is more difficult to pass on today than it was 20 years ago, people need much more complex information, and this is Romanias most significant weakness, experts argue.



    But this years results seem to disprove this conclusion and bring a sliver of hope: around three-quarters of the high-school seniors that stood the Baccalaureate exam this summer have passed. The pass rate went up by 5.5%, to the highest level in 10 years. As many as 162 students got straight As in all subjects, most of them in Bucharest.



    Education Minister Sorin Cîmpeanu: “78.3% of this years high-school seniors have passed the exam, and the highest figures were reported in Cluj, 85.1%, in Iaşi 81.7%, Galaţi 81.6% and Brăila 81.3%. Bucharest saw a 77.4% pass rate, which is above the national average, but hardly one of the top rates. The counties with the lowest pass levels were Ilfov, Giurgiu and Călăraşi. In rural communities we have a 69.2% pass rate, as against 82.7% in urban schools.”



    Mr. Cîmpeanu explained that these good results are owing in part to exam subjects being simplified following the pandemic that kept classes online and children at home. He also added that he hoped digital evaluation would be extended across the country next year, after a pilot project ran smoothly this year in Călăraşi.



    In turn, the results in the secondary school graduation exams also improved this year. Minister Sorin Cîmpeanu announced that “the number of pass grades is at an absolute high for the past 10 years.” The exact figure is 82.3%, meaning that over 122,000 8-graders have passed their exam. In 2021, the proportion was only 76.8%. (AMP)


  • October 22, 2016 UPDATE

    October 22, 2016 UPDATE

    CETA – Romania will carry on negotiations with Canada on lifting visa requirements for Romanians, irrespective of the decisions on the EU – Canada free trade agreement. President Klaus Iohannis said, at the end of the European Council meeting in Brussels, that talks on this topic would follow their appointed course and that there was no deadline for completing them. Negotiations on the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) were resumed in Brussels on Saturday, after the previous day they were suspended because of the opposition of the Belgian region of Wallonia, which is against a number of provisions in the text. Romania has pinned its hopes on CETA, on which the lifting of visa requirements for its citizens depended. More specifically, Bucharest had reached a deal with Ottawa to allow visa-free entry for its citizens as of December next year, in exchange for Romania giving up its objections to CETA. In fact, President Klaus Iohannis announced on Friday that an agreement had been reached on a gradual elimination of visas. Because of Wallonias veto, the EU-Canada trade agreement is currently suspended, and so is the issue of visa requirements for Romanians.




    RALLY – Some 1,500 people took part on Saturday in Bucharest in a rally supporting the Republic of Moldovas joining Romania. Many participants have come from the neighbouring ex-Soviet republic with a mostly Romanian-speaking population. They believe that, in the current geopolitical context, the union of the two countries is the only solution to ensure that the ethnic Romanians in Moldova will not be the victims of a Russian aggression similar to the one against Ukraine. Already a tradition in Bucharest, the pro-Bessarabia rallies started in 2012, with the commemoration of 200 years since this province was first annexed by Tsarist Russia. Todays Republic of Moldova has been established on part of the territory of Bessarabia, which had re-joined Romania after WWI and was re-annexed by the USSR in 1940.




    NATO – The Black Sea region is a geostrategic region where threats for NATO and for its eastern and southern partners overlap, including migration, terror groups and trafficking, said Gen. Nicolae Ciucă, Chief of general Staff of the Romanian Army. He represented Romania at the Strategic Military Partner Conference organised in Bucharest by NATOs Allied Command Transformation. Attending were representatives of 70 NATO member and partner countries. Columbia and Nigeria took part for the first time in talks in this context. The Strategic Military Partner Conference convenes every year and is the main NATO forum discussing the transformations and future challenges for the Alliance and its partners. The main topic of this years talks was the prospective enlargement of partnerships with the North-Atlantic Alliance.




    CINEMA – The feature film ‘Sieranevada’ by the Romanian director Cristi Puiu won two major awards at the Chicago Film Festival, the official site of the competition reports. ‘Sieranevada’ was awarded the Gold Hugo for the best film and the Silver Hugo for best director. Another Romanian feature film, “Graduation by Cristian Mungiu, won the Silver Plaque for best screenplay and Silver Hugo for best actor – Adrian Titieni. This year the Chicago International Film Festival has reached its 52nd edition.



    TENNIS – The Romanian tennis player Monica Niculescu (51 WTA) Saturday won the Luxembourg tournament with 250,000 US dollars in prize money, after defeating seed no 1 Petra Kvitova (Czech Republic) 6/4, 6/0. This is the third WTA tournament that Niculescu has won, after Florianopolis (Brazil) in 2013, and Guangzhou (China) in 2014. In other news, on Sunday, the Romanian Simona Halep plays against Madison Keys from the US, in her first match at the WTA Finals in Singapore, which has 7 million US dollars in total prize money. Halep, seeded 3rd in the competition, plays in the Red Group, which also includes top seed and world no 1 Angelique Kerber (Germany) and Dominika Cibulkova (Slovakia). The White Group includes Polands Agnieszka Radwanska, Karolina Pliskova (Czech Republic), Garbine Muguruza (Spain), with the last spot in this group to be filled by either Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova or Britians Johanna Konta. Simona Halep takes part for the third time in the WTA Finals, after having played the 2014 finals against Serena Williams, and leaving the competition last year in the group stage.

    (translated by: Ana Maria Popescu)

  • Film directors Cristian Mungiu and Bogdan Mirica

    Film directors Cristian Mungiu and Bogdan Mirica

    Five Romanian movies were selected to participate in the festivals 17th edition: Cristi Puius feature film “Sieranevada, a début short reel entitled “4:15 P.M. End of the World written and directed by Catalin Rotaru and Gabi Virginia Sarga, “All rivers flow into the sea, a Romanian Film Academy short reel, directed by Alexandru Badea, (running in the Cinefondation section) along with two winning productions, “Graduation, which brought Cristian Mungiu the best director award and Bogdan Miricas “Dogs, winner of the FIPRESCI award in the “Un Certain Regard section.


    We recall that Cristian Mungiu has reaped three Cannes awards with his productions. “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days brought him the Palme dOr award in 2007. Another production signed by him, “Beyond the Hills got Best Screenplay Award and Best Actress Award, which went to Cristina Flutur and Cosmina Stratan in 2012. In 2016 Mungiu shared the Best Director Award with French Olivier Assayas. A well deserved and also honouring award, as was described by Mungiu himself, mainly because the film has been appreciated by the public from abroad and from the Diaspora. As the Romanian director pointed out, “we are more appreciated abroad than in our own country. Director Mungiu confesses that he takes into account public preferences when it comes to choosing the future plots of his films.



    Cristian Mungiu: “There is a connection between the things that I am concerned about and those that may have an impact on the public. Out of this mélange I am trying to churn out a film, which is not intended to be a socio-political course, or social discourse, but a cinema production with some action and things that are happening. When I made ‘4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days I wasn’t trying to make a movie that would be critical to communism. I presented only an event that I knew of back then. Its important that people knew they are watching a movie. And if besides emotions that movie is also asking some questions, all the better.



    Not only is Mungius latest film, “Graduation or “Baccalaureate raising questions but also touches a sensitive chord with the Romanians: “corruption. Furthermore, the film is in line with Mungius first production “Occident, which he made in 2002, a comedy about the young Romanians dilemma, to stay or to leave the country. “Graduation speaks about those who chose to live in Romania but facing the same dilemma when it comes to their children. But can we speak about a series that was opened by “Occident and closes with “Graduation?



    Cristian Mungiu: “I would be happy if this series ended here, but sadly I believe it will remain open and well even pass it to our children. I didn’t expect that 15 years on from ‘Occident wed be at this point now. I hoped things would develop differently but now I have to revisit the issue from a different angle, that of a parent with much more concerns than I had 15 years back. At that time we thought we could change the world for everybody, including parents. Today, when I think how parents should advise children, I realize the progress is not what we wanted and its difficult to give advice or make decisions. So I have revisited this theme, a reason of concern for many parents at my age.



    Bogdan Mirica, whose feature film “Dog has been designated by the FIPRESCI jury as the best production running in the “Un Certain Regard section, made his début in 2010 with a film entitled “Junkie. He said he discovered the cinema at the age of 30 when he began to write scripts. But what is the most important part in a film? Its the plot, the script or the directors inspiration?



    Bogdan Mirica: “In the case of my film I preferred not to focus on the story very much, because its not very difficult to write a coherent story. I just wanted to experiment with sensations and make a punchy film, but not necessarily through story…through atmosphere, through everything. I wanted it to have an impact, not necessarily supported by the story. That doesn’t mean however the story is sloppy, but that it has some parts missing or uncompleted and its the viewer that could put pieces together.



    As a scriptwriter for his own films, Bogdan Mirica admits that a film usually stems from a mélange of feelings, before laying down its concrete blueprint. This is how things happened with his award-winning “Dogs:



    Bogdan Mirica: “I begin writing from a feeling, from an emotion, which could be pretty unclear at first, but slowly and gradually things are falling into place and I set out to build a real story around that feeling. In this case its about some memories of my childhood, while I was spending my summer holidays at my grandparents in the countryside. There I witnessed conflicts between locals, and some of them were pretty violent. After years I realized I wasn’t much horrified by violence at that time but by its randomness. I didn’t care very much about the idea of reconstructing that reality, though. The film isn’t a realistic one, characters are almost always talking in riddles and time is unreal. I was told the atmosphere in the film is almost Chekhovian and this how I wanted it to be. And if in the future I get the feeling that all these tricks are becoming obsolete and I need to get rid of them and come closer to reality, Ill probably do that.

  • 12 July, 2016

    12 July, 2016

    ZIKA – Romania reported today its first Zika virus infection case. A 27 year-old woman who spent a vacation in Martinique was identified with the illness while in hospital. The Health Ministry specified that the case was isolated, with minimal risk of spreading. The virus was identified in 1947 in Uganda, and is spread mainly by mosquitoes, and is able to produce congenital conditions in babies born of infected mothers. At present, no vaccine is available to counteract the virus, which so far has spread in South and Central America mainly.



    STRIKE – Local administration public servants are on a one day strike in Romania, after negotiations on wages failed late last week. For the duration of the protest, only death certificates and documents related to emergencies will be issued. Trade unions protest the fact that the Labor Ministry would not comply with the negotiated 25% salary raise and subsidies for employee vacations, as previously convened upon. Public servants claim that they are the worst paid state employees, with most of them being paid close to the average gross wage, the equivalent of around 277 Euro. They have already gone on a one hour strike last week.



    COUNTRY PROJECT – The technocratic government in Bucharest submitted for debate the country project titled ‘Competitive Romania’, a strategy for sustainable economic growth until 2020. The project includes cutting red tape, boosting research and development, energy efficiency and modernizing the infrastructure, aiming to bring Romania to 5% economic growth. The document was designed by the government, the National Bank and the Romanian Academy, and will undergo public debate until September. The budget involved is upwards of 16.9 billion Euro, which accounts for about 10% of the GDP over five years.



    TENNIS – Six Romanian tennis players debut today in the BRD Bucharest Open tournament, with prizes totaling 250,000 dollars. The favorite is Simona Halep, right now fifth placed in the world, who will compete against Czech player Barbora Krejcikova, 188th seeded, while Gabriela Ruse (318th seeded), plays against Latvian Anastasia Sevastova, 66th seeded. Monica Niculescu, ranked 47th, plays Andreea Mitu, ranked 159th, while Patricia Tig, ranked 100th, plays 17 year-old Ioana Minca, who is in the competition thanks to a wild card.



    HANDBALL – Romania’s womens handball team today takes on Croatia in the quarterfinals of Moscow hosted U-20 World Championships. In the round of last 16 this past Monday Romania outclassed Japan by the narrowest of margins, 32-31. Earlier this month, at the World University Championships held in Spain, in Malaga, Romanias womens national handball team walked away with silver, while the mens team won the trophy.



    GRADUATION – Almost 67% of the 130,000 high school students taking the graduation exam this year have passed the state examination, according to the Ministry of Education. Students who did not pass can make another pass at it in late summer. Last year, 67.9% of students who finished high school passed the graduation exam in 2015.