The results at the national Baccalaureate exam provide an unvarnished picture of the failure of the Romanian educational system on Klaus Iohannis's watch, given that only 42 percent of the children who started first grade in 2011 ended up passing the Baccalaureate in 2023, the Save Romania Union (USR) said in a release.

"Out of 206,055 students who entered school in 2011, only 87,266 passed the Baccalaureate. And what's more dramatic is that a large part of this generation was lost underway during high school. We had 174,472 students who finished the 8th grade in 2019 and of these just 50 percent (!!!) managed to pass the exam today - 87,266. This is where we stand!," said USR Senator Sefan Palarie as cited in the release.

According to USR, "the Social Democrat and Liberal Education ministers who successively held office in recent years did absolutely nothing to change the fate of Romanian school for the better. President Iohannis, who, after launching with pomp the Educated Romania program, gave his blessing for the adoption of an Education package that doesn't offer real solutions to reduce school dropout, protects the coaching industry, encourages plagiarism and academic imposture, is equally to blame for this."

"The ever-lower passing rates at the Baccalaureate and at the National Assessment exams represent the mirror of an education system hijacked by politicians who failed to reform Romanian education. They once again failed to make good on their promise. In addition, this year we have a Baccalaureate exam marred by subject tampering, which brings to mind the basic 'specialty' of the PNL-PSD political cahoots," USR deputy Filip Havarneanu said in his turn.

The USR reminds that it has summoned the representatives of the Education Ministry for Tuesday, July 4 at noon before the Senate's Education Committee to offer explanations about Baccalaureate fraud suspicions. AGERPRES (RO - author: Catalina Matei, editor: Florin Marin; EN - editor: Simona Klodnischi)