The Large Scale Testing Lab team conducted a new series of analyses, based on data available from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2022, and formulated a new set of recommendations aimed at contributing to the improvement of civic education in Romania.
The results of our analyses indicate that approximately half of Romanian 8th-grade students face difficulties in understanding and applying fundamental democratic principles. Additionally, a significant proportion of teachers who teach subjects in the “Man and Society” curricular area feel insufficiently prepared to address essential civic education topics, such as voting, elections, and constitutional systems.
These findings, corroborated with other recent studies (Bădescu et al., 2024), highlight the need to ensure students have access to better-prepared teachers. In this context, our main recommendation is that the allocation of Social Education hours — a subject taught by teachers with diverse specializations — should be conditional on completing a free continuing education course, specialized in the teaching, learning, and assessment of this subject.