The next school year, high school students will have less classes every week – 28 instead of 31. Only 6 subjects will be compulsory and up to 3 will be optional. The changes are part of the development concept for the National Curriculum, announced today by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Research, IPN reports.

Minister Monica Babuc said that in drawing, music and PE classes, numeric grades will be replaced with word equivalents. “This is meant to encourage our children to develop their abilities without feeling inferior if they aren’t naturally gifted in a certain field”, she explained.

The homeroom class will add personal and professional development modules. Volunteering classes will gradually enter the curriculum via the homeroom and civics class.

In primary schools, robotics and computer science modules will be added to the technological education class. The civics class will become ‘education for society’ and will include modules such as education for democratic citizenship, human rights, integrity, intercultural education and patriotic education.

Monica Babuc promised that teachers’ wages won’t drop because of the simplified curriculum. 15 million lei have been allotted from the national budget for updating the curriculum.