After the publication of the results from the 2024 Baccalaureate exam, accusations have emerged regarding pressures exerted on the groups of experts who designed the exam papers in order to reduce the level of difficulty. Ligia Deca, directly targeted by these suspicions, firmly denied any interference.
According to sources from the Ministry of Education and the county school inspectorates cited by Edupedu.ro, a week before the baccalaureate exam, at the request of Minister Ligia Deca, teachers from outside were brought to the National Center for Policies and Evaluation in Education (CNPEE) – the institution within the ministry that designs all exam papers – to see the classified exam papers.
In addition, the director Marian Șuță allegedly instructed the experts who designed the papers to show them to the visiting teachers in order to verify if rural students could achieve a grade of 5, "so that the disaster from the trial exam does not happen again."
"The direct pressure was to lower the difficulty level of the papers, because it's an election year, and the trial exam results were repeatedly presented in the Center as a model of: 'such a thing should not happen again'," stated sources from the Ministry of Education for the cited website.
The teachers from outside the center were presented to the experts, before the exams, as "necessary presences to ensure that they could complete the papers and the rural children" and "to avoid a repeat of what happened during the trial exam."
The results of the national exam trial were very poor, and the ministry leadership reportedly decided that additional "measures" needed to be taken, in addition to educational ones.
"This is the first time a minister has done such a thing. Work groups were established, this was an interference. There are internal procedures of the CNPEE and confidentiality, when someone interferes in the system," said the sources, specifying that ultimately teachers from outside did see the papers before the exam.
What Ministry of Education Officials Say
The Secretary of State responsible for organizing the Baccalaureate exams, Zoltán Kallós, stated that he did not call any teachers to view the papers at the Center.
"The papers were ready, ten versions, a week before the special Baccalaureate. No one saw them except on the morning of the exam, when they were distributed. I did not make any calls. The procedure states that the papers must be ready a week before the special Baccalaureate, and then no one has access until the morning of the exam," Kallós declared to Edupedu.
The Director of the National Center for Policies and Evaluation in the Ministry of Education, Marian Șuță, claims that the expert groups designing the baccalaureate papers are finalized in December and January. "Personally, I did not ask any coordinator to come and show the papers to anyone from the field a week before. The way they organize their work with the working group they are part of by decision, with people, is their prerogative," Șuță stated for the same source.
When asked if he knows if Minister or Secretary of State Sorin Ion asked the CNPEE experts to show the papers to teachers from outside, "to certify that rural students get a grade of 5," Marian Șuță replied: "They (Ligia Deca and Sorin Ion) do not directly discuss with colleagues; if they were to discuss, they would do it through me, or they did not ask me for such a thing."
"I am not aware of such a thing and I am convinced that my colleagues did not come in a week ago to see the papers. The papers were finalized a month and a half before this Baccalaureate session. It is unlikely that any of my colleagues did such a thing last week. If they did, they will answer for it, but I do not believe so. There is a procedure, and they follow it," Sorin Ion emphasized.
Minister Deca's Response
Ligia Deca stated in a press conference at the Ministry of Education headquarters, after the initial results of the 2024 Baccalaureate were published, that there was no influence in the elaboration of the papers.
"The Minister of Education has no involvement in the process of paper elaboration. The elaboration process is managed by the National Center for Evaluation Policies (...) Additionally, the National Commission manages the evaluation process.
Allow me to confess that I also saw in the press various positions of teachers indicating rather an average level of difficulty for the papers. I do not believe that students who studied well had a problem. However, at the same time, if we look at the numbers, we see that they are not statistically significantly different, neither better nor worse than in previous years. So, from my point of view, at the ministry leadership level, there has never been interference with the natural process of paper elaboration," Deca claimed.
According to the preliminary results, the 2024 Baccalaureate recorded the highest passing rate in the last 15 years, with over 76% of candidates passing the exam.