New curriculum plans for all high school years will be open to public debate in a few weeks. High school students study from textbooks published before they were born. The number of hours allocated to each subject was decided 20 years ago. Before the pandemic, officials unsuccessfully attempted to modify the curricula.

Almost 30% of the time is dedicated to Romanian language, as well as mathematics and sciences. Psychology, logic studies, philosophy and economics represent 16%. Very little time is allocated for arts, sports and technology. Career counseling is almost nonexistent.

The irony is that representatives of the Ministry of Education have ended up discussing exactly what parents requested in 2017 - more hours per week for subjects in which children take the Baccalaureate exam. The problem is that, before modifying the curriculum plans, officials did not thoroughly study how the current courses are conducted.

This issue is also raised by OSCE experts. No one knows how much teachers skip classes in Romania, with the complicity of school principals and the acceptance of students, who despite being the ones at a disadvantage, naively celebrate the opportunity to miss classes.

Marian Staș, teacher: "I hold the belief that substantial changes will not take place due to a characteristic aspect of this society. Complicity, or the tacit agreement to engage in questionable practices among all parties, is a prevailing factor. Statistically, there is a lack of integrity and correctness among the three parties involved - parents, teachers and administrators. If we were more rigorous, our educational system wouldn't rank at the bottom of Europe".

The Ministry of Education aims to restructure what high school students learn in each subject by autumn. With new curriculum plans and programs, 50,000 teachers should undergo training, although for a while, they will still teach using nearly 20-year-old textbooks.