Premier puts pressure on the Minister of Education

The situation in education is not a good one, and this has just been reaffirmed by the results of the PISA tests. Against this backdrop, Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu has asked the Minister of Education, Ligia Deca, to come up with solutions regarding performance criteria in education, stating that any expenditure must be accompanied by a reform and must result in performance. The Prime Minister declared, "I announce that in the coming days, we will work together on the 2024 budget project, where investments represent the foundation of our economic development vision. Also, there will be the largest budget allocation in history for Education, to be clear for everyone. After Romania's results in the PISA tests, I ask Minister Deca to come up with solutions regarding performance criteria in education. Any expenditure must be accompanied by a reform and must result in performance! We cannot expect that just by increasing salaries, a miracle will happen! Because it will not happen! Therefore, performance criteria must be introduced, based on which salaries will increase."

The Minister of Education, Ligia Deca, announced last week that Romania's results in PISA 2022 remained at the same level as in 2018, mentioning that, unlike other states, our country did not record significant losses in students' performance: "The Romanian educational system is resilient, but we need to increase the level of functional literacy. We have a significant proportion of students who do not have the minimum skills needed to successfully face the challenges of today's society. The PISA 2022 test performances still place us below the OECD average." The Minister believes that it is time to make progress in terms of PISA test results.