The Minister of Education talks below about some of the profound changes that schools all over Romania will go through, and which millions of students from all over the country will feel, and this is because they want to standardize the assessment, and this will bring with it many other changes very important for children.
The Minister of Education explains below how exactly these standardized assessments should be done, what their role is, but also what major benefits they will bring to everyone, so it is important that they are implemented for the good of students all over the country.
"Among the 11 schools, which could be even more (n. ed. schools in the pilot program for standardized testing), I would like to list some arguments that convinced me that this standardized assessment is necessary. Beyond the fact that it is a request that has been going on for a very long time in the public space, the need for standardization of evaluations, I have several arguments that I took into account when I made this decision.
First of all, these standardized assessments are a very powerful support tool for teachers, but they are also useful for students and parents. They contribute essentially to the construction of that individualized learning plan. It is something that is an obligation of every teacher since 2011, so it has been 11 years since then.
These individualized learning plans remained a legal obligation. When we have these standardized assessments, we have an extra chance for our fellow teachers to understand the importance of an individualized learning plan, important at any time, even more important now, after a health crisis that was a catastrophe in any system of education in this world.
To the chronic problems were added the problems generated by the dysfunctionalities in the education system, amplified by the health crisis. The second argument, it doesn't turn into grades, it doesn't turn into classifications, into hierarchies, that doesn't happen for students, but neither for teachers, nor for schools. In this way, it supports argument 3, the familiarization of teachers and parents with descriptive, narrative reports.
The grade is not enough, we were used in school to evaluate the knowledge, the content, I have been a teacher for over 30 years, I can do this very easily. Many of our colleagues forget that we should no longer focus on evaluating knowledge, on memorizing information, but we should focus on competences."
