The Ministry of Education and Research launched on Monday for public consultation a draft order for the approval of methodological norms regarding the organization and conduct of school competitions - olympiads and school contests - and the specific Regulation for drawing up calendars for extracurricular education projects.
Regarding the organization and conduct of school competitions - school olympiads and contests - the possibility for students to participate in a class higher than the one in which they are enrolled in the school year in which the competition is held, within the same educational cycle (middle school/high school), was explicitly introduced.
According to the project, participation in a class lower than the one in which the students are enrolled in the school year in which the competition is taking place is not allowed.
At the same time, for equal opportunities, the possibility was introduced for students enrolled in a form of schooling in a hospital or at home to be able to take the tests of the stages of the school Olympiads, with the exception of the practical tests, in the hospital or at home, with the approval of the committee responsible for organizing the respective stage of the school competition.
"The possibility has been introduced that, depending on the specifications in the specific regulation, school Olympiads can also be held in online format. The organization method (physical/online) will be provided for in the regulations of each competition," informs the Ministry of Education and Research.
Also, the provision was introduced that the evaluation of written test papers can be done digitally.
Thus, the method of evaluating the works (physical/digitalized) will be mentioned in the specific regulations of each competition. If the evaluation of the works within a school competition is carried out in digital format, on a platform dedicated to this purpose by the Ministry of Education and Research, the National Commission for the Coordination of School Competitions establishes, through procedure, the specific activities.
For transparency, the following are explicitly mentioned:
* the obligation for each competition's regulations to include clear, non-discriminatory and sufficient tie-breaking criteria for qualifying for additional places at the national stage;
* the obligation of the Olympiad centers and the county inspectorates/ISMB to display, in addition to the scales, the topics of the competition tests, as well as the method/channel for communicating the results;
* the right of students to view the work, before submitting the appeal, both at the county stage, as well as at the zonal and national stages.
According to the cited source, in order to increase the relevance of the competitions, the minimum score proposed for qualification to the national stage is 60% of the maximum possible score to be obtained at the county stage, compared to 40% currently.
"In view of the digitalized evaluation of written tests, at all stages of the school olympiads, regardless of the discipline, the results are assessed by scores from 0 to 100, according to the scales. There are no changes regarding the number of places for qualification to the national stage," the source specifies.
At the same time, the main change regarding the Specific Regulation for drawing up the calendars of extracurricular education projects refers to the "Regional Projects" category, which was assimilated to the "Inter-county Projects" category, therefore, in the project submitted to public consultation, the categories of extracurricular education projects are national, inter-county, county/Bucharest municipality.
"The proposed changes in the two projects launched for public consultation aim both to increase transparency in the process of organizing and selecting competitions, and to increase the relevance of these competitions," the Ministry of Education and Research states.
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