The skills acquired by Romanian high-school students are insufficiently aligned with employers' actual needs, as curriculum policies are developed and updated without systematically incorporating labour market requirements, according to an audit by Romania's Court of Accounts.

'Romania's compulsory pre-university education system has a responsibility to provide key skills through education, yet many students leave school without mastering the skills needed to integrate into society. Romania ranks among the lowest EU countries in PISA assessments, signalling major problems with the quality of education: graduates with inadequate skills, high school dropout rates and widespread functional illiteracy,' says the report, titled 'Performance Audit: The Educational Response to Labour Market Requirements'.

The document notes that poor-quality education is identified as one of Romania's national vulnerabilities, while the essential role of education in sustainable development and national security is also highlighted in the country's strategic documents.

Against this background, the Court of Accounts conducted a performance audit examining how well the professional skills provided by Romania's upper-secondary education system are aligned with labour market requirements.

The audit assessed the extent of cooperation between secondary education and the labour market, as well as the relationship between the number of school places offered and employers' needs.

The audit was carried out between April and November 2025 and covered the 2022-2024 period.

The Court of Accounts found that curriculum policies for high schools are developed and updated without systematically integrating labour market requirements, resulting in a limited match between the skills acquired by students and employers' actual needs.

'Although the curriculum is updated on the basis of labour market developments, digitalisation, the introduction of new key skills, international education trends and monitoring data [national assessments, feedback from teachers and students, PISA, etc.], labour market representatives are not consulted in the curriculum development process,' the report says.

Technological and vocational high schools appear to have an advantage because they benefit from genuine partnerships with businesses, practical training placements and programmes adapted to local requirements, the auditors said.

By contrast, theoretical high schools remain focused more on transversal skills and adaptability, without a concrete connection to the labour market.

Regarding institutional cooperation between high schools and the labour market, the audit found there are no dedicated structures within the ministry, school inspectorates or high schools responsible for maintaining a continuous link between education and the labour market, including in areas such as work placements, career guidance and adapting curricula across the entire high-school system.

Local cooperation often depends on the individual initiative of school management and is concentrated mainly in technological and vocational education, resulting in inequalities between counties, according to the report.

The auditors also found that the education and career paths of high-school graduates are monitored only in a fragmented manner, using different mechanisms at central and local level and without a single interconnected database.

'The absence of a methodological framework and standardised national procedures for monitoring graduates' educational and professional paths, combined with the absence of a dedicated structure with staff responsible for collecting and interpreting data, results in partial reporting among the institutions involved regarding graduate tracking,' the Court of Accounts said.

The audit also found that the relevance criterion included in the methodology used to determine the number of places offered by theoretical high schools is not being observed.

In technological and vocational education, labour market requirements are taken into account when determining the number of school places, while the same principle is not applied to theoretical high schools, according to the report.

'Determining the number of places in theoretical high schools is based predominantly on retrospective data concerning the take-up of places in previous years and students' preferences, without systematically incorporating a forward-looking analysis of labour market needs or a future-oriented vision of graduates' integration into employment,' the report says.

The audit stresses that stronger partnerships between the education system and businesses could help bring the skills acquired by students more closely into line with labour market requirements.

Among its recommendations, the Court of Accounts calls for a systematic process to assess how skills development corresponds to actual labour market requirements, with a view to regularly updating education policies across the entire high-school system.

It also recommends developing activities to ensure a continuous and systematic relationship between high schools and the labour market.

Other recommendations include establishing a unified framework for collecting, reporting and updating data on high-school graduates' educational and career paths and ensuring compliance with the relevance criterion when determining the number of high-school places. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Nicoleta Banciulea; EN - writing by: Simona Iacob)