The Ministry of Education takes action regarding merit scholarships, unmerited ones

Finally, authorities have recognized that the new regulations related to scholarships have led to absurd situations. The Ministry of Education has requested that the School Inspectorates report the status of each scholarship category by today, and for merit scholarships, a breakdown based on grade ranges. After analyzing this data, proposals for amending certain provisions of the Pre-University Education Law, which have led to "anomalies," will be made, stated the Secretary of State, Florian Lixandru. According to him, these provisions in the law concerning the awarding of merit scholarships, which have led to "anomalies," can be rectified through an emergency ordinance or a parliamentary initiative: "We discussed this at the ministry's leadership level, and this can only be rectified by changing the law. The law can be amended through an emergency ordinance or a parliamentary initiative. (...) We have requested statistics from the field on each scholarship category, on each criterion, to see the number of beneficiaries, and based on what we find here, we will propose remedial measures. (...) We are currently analyzing and collecting data from the field. We have set a deadline for the School Inspectorates to report by Monday, and we have asked for a breakdown of merit scholarships by grade ranges to see what grades were eligible for merit scholarships. (...) The law is approved by Parliament. We are only implementing what is written in the law because the methodology for awarding school scholarships does nothing more than put into practice what is stipulated in the law." He mentioned that there are cases where, according to the current provisions of the pre-university education law, ninth-grade students with low scores on the National Evaluation exam or even those who did not take the exam will receive merit scholarships: "This anomaly that has arisen with grades below 5 for merit scholarships - it concerns ninth-grade students, especially those in vocational education, who were admitted even without taking the National Evaluation exam. In practice, the ranking criterion for the ninth-grade merit scholarship is the admission grade. (...) There are classes, especially in vocational education, where all students were admitted regardless of their grade, they were ranked by this grade, and they were admitted. By applying the percentage, it is possible that students with grades below five will be eligible for merit scholarships because that's what the law provides. There may be situations where students were admitted to vocational schools without taking the National Evaluation exam because, as the National Evaluation is not mandatory, they participated ... Those who did not take the National Evaluation could be admitted to vocational education within the available places. (...) First, those who took the National Evaluation are considered." Law 198/2023 regulates the payment of scholarships at Article 108, specifying that 30% of students in each grade at the middle school and high school levels are eligible for merit scholarships, with no mention of the minimum grade, the Secretary of State noted.