30 of the 84 lyceums operating in Chisinau haven't managed to form a minimum of two parallel classes across every grade, as required by the regulations, because of the low number of enrolled students. Municipal education chief Tatiana Nagnibeda-Tverdohleb has told IPN that the municipal authorities, together with the Ministry of Education and the local authorities, will decide what to do with these institutions.
One option is to suggest to the lyceums that have constantly failed to form parallel classes in the last few years to downgrade their status from lyceum (liceu) to gymnasium (gimnaziu), a lower-secondary level education type of institution. In the case of the lyceums that haven't satisfied the requirement only this year, the Ministry of Education could accept to extend their lyceum status.
Tatiana Nagnibeda-Tverdohleb blames the migration of school-age children, to join their parents abroad, to be the main cause of the low enrollment numbers. In the last 5-6 years, roughly 7,000 children who completed middle school education and were supposed to enter the high school level left abroad. Another reason is the BAC exams, which is seen by some students as too high a hurdle and which have made them choose vocational education instead.
