Decisions about where your child goes to school are very personal, and they can become a difficult task. So it’s normal for parents to feel anxious about getting these choices right. For some, it’s very simple: Their children go to the local public school, the institution that is in the same area as their home. Other parents, however, want to look at other government schools, so it becomes a challenge to pick the right one for their child.
One metric to consider is how students perform in national tests. The Romanian education system measures a child’s performance every second year, but the first major assessment test comes when children finish gymnasium (8th grade) and want to study further at a high school. To do that, these youngsters need to pass a nationwide test called Evaluarea Nationala (the National Test), which can be taken only once in June. The subjects are Romanian language and literature, mathematics, and the given language of ethnic minority and bilingual schools.
So, when parents pick a school, alongside the teachers they can also consider the success rate of the pupils of that specific school. This shouldn’t affect the parents overall opinion of the school: it’s one criterion, which can become important if the ranking of the selected school doesn’t improve over time. ErdélyStat has compiled a list of the bilingual schools in Transylvania, ranking them based on the success rate of their Hungarian-language students in the National Test of June 2019. Their data is based on the results published by the Education Ministry.
Keeping in mind that they have included only institutions with at least five students enrolling in the National Test, they ranked 5,764 schools, as that’s the number of schools that matched the aforementioned criterion at a national level. Altogether, 7,875 ethnic Hungarian pupils enrolled for the National Test this June from 480 institutions, and out of those only 427 schools met the aforementioned five-student rule.
So, which are the best Hungarian-language schools in Transylvania? The top ten is dominated by schools from Marosvásárhely/Târgu Mureș and Kolozsvár/Cluj-Napoca. However, the #1 spot goes to the Bolyai Farkas High School (this institution also provides gymnasium-level education) with total points coming in over 8 (more precisely: 8.07) out of a maximum of 10. In second place, we find Kolozsvár-based Apáczai Csere János High-school (7.94), followed closely by the Székelyudvarhely/Odorheiu Secuiesc-based Tamási Áron gymnasium (7.93). You can check out the full list on ErdélyStat’s website.
Title image: young student. Image source: Pixabay
