The Minister of Education, explanations for the episode in which he was absorbed by the phone while a student spoke with tears in his eyes: “I responded to emergencies”

While a student was talking about the problems in the education system, Minister Mihai Dimian was caught absorbed in his mobile phone. The government official came on Wednesday with explanations about this moment.

The episode took place at a debate organized by the Education Committee of the Romanian Senate, a day ago. Ilinca, a student in the 5th grade, addressed the Minister of Education, Mihai Dimian, at the debate on children's mental health, in which she spoke about the pressures she feels from the school, parents and teachers. The girl's speech was reported by Edupedu.

While the girl was talking, with tears in her eyes, about her dissatisfaction with the school, Mihai Dimian kept his eyes on the screen of his mobile phone.

The student “addressed everyone in the room, “you”, that is, she also addressed the teachers and parents at that debate, when there were many people, and there were interventions. I, on the other hand, had left the period in which I agreed with them to participate, that's why I also invited the secretary of state to join me there, and I responded to the emergencies regarding the bills mentioned in the PNRR report”, said the minister, on the “Observator” show from Antena 1.

“I woke up at 2:00 a.m. to work”

The official gave similar explanations to CNN's Antena 3. Dimian said that the day had been extremely busy and that he had explained to the organizers from the beginning that he could not stay very long at the debate.

“I responded to that invitation to a debate (…) and I said from the beginning that, given the activities of that day, I had woken up at 2:00 a.m. to work on a bill, amendments to a bill that is urgent in order not to lose the so-called money associated with the PNRR milestone on research. () The bill on the salary in Romanian education was also under discussion (…) and also at 3:00 p.m. reporting for the PNRR projects that are to enter into negotiations with the European Commission and there were over 4000 projects that were worked on”, said Dimian, for Antena 3 CNN.

“From 2 am to 9 pm I worked for education,” the minister insisted.

“At the time, several messages had been collected and some were related to these emergencies, the project regarding the digitalization of research (the secretary of state wrote to me about it), colleagues who were negotiating with the wage law and reporting to the PNRR which was until 3:00 p.m. and there was talk of extending the deadline until the next day, which happened. (…) Of course it is good to give as much time as possible, but I told you what the context was: from 2 in the morning until 21:00 I worked for education,” the government official also said.

“All the teachers want is to charge us”

The student's intervention lasted almost three minutes and was visible on the images from the live broadcast of the debate organized at the Senate Education Committee. Ilinca spoke about the pressure in school on children and the fact that they are “judged”, ending her intervention in tears and in the applause of the hall.

She also talked about the fact that most children feel pressure at school, “because their peers are constantly judging them” and “the teachers don't pay them any attention.”

“I know that in the next week they have to give 10 million tests, given that they still have 10 million tests behind them, uncorrected and not submitted. I know that they cannot wake up in the morning without thinking that they will arrive at school where someone will judge them (…) I am judged excessively and I think it is not right”, Ilinca also said.

The student also spoke about her experience in Romanian language classes, when she had tears in her eyes. “The teachers always want to burden us. I have a Romanian teacher who this year gave me 27 books to read, of which I didn't understand any of them. The homework is more and more and I didn't think it would be like this. I want projects, I want things to learn from. I don't want someone constantly standing behind me, giving me homework, tests and all kinds of voices that can be heard from behind telling me that I'm not somebody and that I don't deserve this attention and that I'm zero,” she concluded.