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Former Hungarian students are preparing to sue the Romanian state over their poor results in the Romanian secondary school-leaving exam. They believe that Bucharest discriminates against Hungarian students by not teaching Romanian as a foreign language, the press service of the Harghita County Municipality told MTI.
At a press conference in Miercurea Ciuc (Csíkszereda), the Szekler county government presented the steps taken and the results achieved so far in the Romanian graduation exam of Hungarian students. The case of 17 former students who passed their exams in other subjects but failed to obtain a satisfactory mark in the subject of Romanian language is being investigated.
The 18-year-olds are preparing to file a court case seeking compensation from the Education Ministry for discrimination.
Lawyer Tamás Szikszai, representing the students, said that they expect more young people to join the lawsuit. He pointed out that in a healthy society, legal means should not be used to enforce children’s fundamental right to education.
According to a report published in the online edition of the Hargita Népe county newspaper, the results of the last Romanian exam of the last school-leaving examination in Harghita county were also presented.
As the article points out, this subject had the highest failure rate of 33 percent.
School inspectorate Levente Demeter said at the press conference that they are trying to help students with several programs to enhance Romanian language proficiency, which should also improve results, and that most of the Romanian teachers have also attended various training courses.
Hargitha County Council President Csaba Borboly recalled that
Romania’s supreme court ruled last year that teaching Romanian to Hungarian students was discriminatory.
No change has been made since, therefore they are having to take legal action to enforce it, he explained.
In Romania, next year will see the graduation of the first class of Hungarian students who learn Romanian as a foreign language, in a different way from the majority of students. Therefore, they will get a different grade from their Romanian peers in the school-leaving exam. Education experts hope that the change will improve the results of Hungarian students.
Via MTI, Featured image: MTI/Krizsán Csaba
