Deputy Minister of Education Igor Grosu discourages those who intend to cheat in the 2014 Baccalaureate session and warns them that exam frauds are punished criminally. The Ministry of Education commits itself to correctly assess the students.

A meeting organized by the Journalistic Investigations Center and UNESCO representatives centered on the new elements introduced in the Baccalaureate exam organization and assessment system, aimed at preventing and identifying sources of fraud. The representatives of the Ministry of Education said the number of commission members in Baccalaureate centers will be increased. The highest score that a candidate must get for a grade of ‘5’ is 30%, up from 25% last year. It will be possible to identify mobile phones and other banned devices that can help the students to copy. A person caught cheating will be unable to take the rest of the Baccalaureate exams.

The video recordings will be digitized and processed. If there is evidence that the student was intimidated or of copying, those to blame will be penalized. Igor Grosu said the Education Law now contains a provision enabling disqualifying a person caught cheating in one exam from all the other exams.

Anatol Gremalschi, program director at the Public Policy Institute, said the attitude towards the exams of teachers, parents and students is now much more competitive than last year. The students started to learn systematically and prepare for the Baccalaureate exams from the tenth grade. Those who feel they will pass the exams transfer to vocational schools. It’s important to understand that the Baccalaureate exams are competitive exams and the parents should not put pressure on their children so that they get higher grades. “The Baccalaureate exams are voluntary and in nobody is forced to take them,” he stated.

Anatol Topala, director of the Quality Assurance Agency, said that every exam paper is personalized by a barcode. It’s banned making copies of the papers or extracting information from them, from the start of the exam until the announcement of the results. The candidate admission session closes on April 15. Almost 29,000 candidates have been admitted so far. Of them, 22,000 are candidates from the current session, while the others are candidates who failed the previous sessions.

“The programs are published on institutions’ websites and the students can prepare for the exams, including morally,” said Ion Gutu, lecturer at the State University of Moldova.

According to a sociological study by the Public Policy Institute, 80% of the employers said they do not have competent staff for the available posts. This points to a problem in the training system. The students must pass the exams fairly so as to be able to fulfill the job duties later.

The Baccalaureate session will be held on June 3 – 20. There will be used the same methodology of assessing and supervising candidates as last year.