Leaders will monitor assignments given by classroom teachers so that they do not take up more than 2 hours of the student's time. Provisions for holiday homework too
The task of monitoring the amount of homework given by teachers will fall to the principals, and in the case of primary classes to the director of the educational institution, according to the ministerial order signed on Friday, December 5, by Daniel David, quoted by Edupedu.ro.
According to the document, the time allocated for homework is the same as at present, 1 hour at most for primary school students and 2 hours for middle school and high school students. No homework is given in kindergarten and preparatory class.
In the primary classes, the principal will have to ensure that the one-hour time is respected by the teachers, and in the middle and high school classes the homework is monitored by the class directors. If the assignments exceed the specified limit, the conductors must report to the principal.
The document also stipulates that feedback from students and parents regarding the usefulness and effectiveness of homework should be collected annually.
Holiday homework is not compulsory
During the holidays, as a rule, homework will not be given for primary and secondary school students. However, if they are given, they are of an additional type, meaning students can choose to do them or not.
“The use of homework as a punishment tool (a large amount of homework, repetitive exercises) is prohibited, as well as the request to complete/complete learning activities/contents, which require a systematic approach in the classroom and not to be completed/completed individually, as homework,” the document states.
“I sincerely believe that this regulation helps both children and teachers to benefit from an educational context that is not only efficient, but also pleasant and healthy, strengthening trust in the school and between students-teachers-parents”, says Daniel David in the accompanying statement the document.
Art. 4. (1) During the holidays, as a rule, homework will not be given for primary and secondary school students.
(2)
Art. 8. In setting the homework, negative effects will be avoided, such as: the student's loss of interest in learning (due to the amount, difficulty or monotony of the homework, etc.), physical and emotional fatigue, the reduction of free time for recreational activities (sports, artistic, household activities, reading, etc.), the deepening of the differences between high-performing students and those in difficulty.
Art 9.
Art. 10. (1) Student and parent feedback on the usefulness and effectiveness of homework will be collected annually.
(2) The director, for primary education, and the class leaders, for the other levels of pre-university education, are responsible for collecting feedback, which will be analyzed in the administrative councils of the school units, which will take measures both to make education more efficient through homework, and to increase the degree of satisfaction of students and parents.
The full list of provisions proposed in the draft ministerial order can be consulted here.
Context information
Recently, Sorin Ion, secretary of state in the Ministry of Education and Research, told ProTV news that a secondary school student has 7 hours a day at school and if “4 hours of homework are given”, then it means a lot.
In April, the Minister of Education and Research declared, when presenting the weekly report on the students' homework, that the principals should take care of the coordination between the teachers, “so as not to burden the children more than is necessary”. He stated that “homework should not exceed one hour a day in primary education, 2 hours in middle school and high school education.”
In March, the Minister of Education and Research told parents concerned that students are getting too much homework “to notify the principal, the school principal.” If they don't get an answer, let them go to the inspectorate and only then to the ministry, he said.
Adina Papazi, teacher of the Romanian language at the IL Caragiale National College in Bucharest, said, regarding homework, that “I can't go during the break to do a meeting with my colleagues: you give them 3 exercises, because I gave them 2”. She stated that “you can't count something like that”.
Recently, Luciana Antoci, adviser on education issues in the Chancellery of Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan, emphasized that “it is not the time spent at the office solving endless homework that helps in the child's development, but quality homework and the free time that the child must have with the parent”.
Adriana Iancu, Romanian language teacher and director of Secondary School no. 206 from Bucharest, declared for Prima TV that “homework should not be viewed only from this perspective of training, of immediate learning”. She believes that homework is “primarily an exercise in time management, attention management.”
Dana Bobocea, director of the Grigore Moisil National College in Bucharest, said on the TVR Info InfoEdu show that students must come and tell the teacher if he understood or did not understand something from the assignment or the lesson taught. If things are wrong, only then should they ask for the help of another teacher, believes Dana Bobocea.
An experimental study led by researcher Dacian Dolean, which explored the impact of homework on 3rd grade students, in Romanian and Mathematics, returned “huge effects on the development of knowledge (2.58), but also on the rounding of natural numbers (0.71) and on learning the unknown term (0.20)”, in the conditions that “the average effects of educational intervention programs are generally around 0.1 of a standard deviation”, he explained to Edupedu.ro.
The researcher stated, in an interview given to Edupedu.ro, that he carried out the research starting “from the premise that in the third grade the homework time should not exceed 40 minutes”. Another specificity of this experiment was the involvement of the students' parents, who were supported with guides created specifically for them to help their children with their homework.
In February 2023, Oana Moraru, educator, educational expert and private school director, explained why parents should help children with their homework, especially in the first grades: “I recommend parents, at least in the first and second grades, to devote as much time as possible to their children's homework and to stop formulating around them expressions like: hurry up, let's finish them so you can play, come on faster, let's not leave them for the last hundred meters, let's get rid of them“. “The way we look at learning goes into the child's system like a virus”, said Oana Moraru in the Cu capul în Nori podcast.
“The homework should not be a punishment or a weapon. The homework should effectively be an opportunity for him (the student – editor's note) to consolidate at home, to assimilate very well what he learned at school, to imprint those things in his mind, that's all,” said Florentin Gheorghe, Romanian language teacher, at Radio Romania Actualității.
(6) Homework for a discipline, with the purpose of completing larger/synthesis works, can be a maximum of one per learning interval (module).
