Education minister: More pupils pass National Evaluation, pass rate gap between urban and rural persists

A total of 82.3% of the pupils who sat the National Evaluation, the exam at the end of the secondary school cycle, had results higher than grade 5, the passing grade, education minister Sorin Cîmpeanu said at a press conference on June 23, quoted by News.ro.

The exam result is the average grade computed for the two tests: Romanian language and Maths.

This year's percentage of pass results is the highest in ten years, the minister explained. Last year, 76.8% achieved results higher than 5, or a little over 94,000 pupils.

In the Romanian language exam, 127,920 pupils (85.9%) had grades higher than 5, compared to 84% last year. In Maths, 77.5% managed the same.

The minister also pointed to the “poor quality of education in rural areas,” where the fail results (averages below 5) were three times higher than in urban areas.

A total of 144,494 pupils sat the exam, out of the 155,561 who registered or 95.5%. The number of pupils who registered was 24,000 higher than in the previous year, the minister said.

Fifty-seven percent of the pupils who sat the National Evaluation had various spelling, punctuation and writing problems, the minister explained. Referring to one of the exercises the pupils had at the exam, which covered correct writing, the minister said only 6% fully solved it.

“In other words, only 6% were able to write Romanian perfectly. It is a sad conclusion but an important one to know what we need to do. More specifically, the verbs ‘to have’, ‘to be’ or the noun ‘street,’ the adjective ‘proud’ or the agreement between the pronoun and the noun – 14% can’t write correctly any of the given words in the requested form,” the minister explained, quoted by News.ro.

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