Over a Third of Students Are Numerically Illiterate in Romania

The Association for Values in Education (AVE Romania) and the BRIO platform announced on Wednesday, February 5, the results of the first National Report on Numerical Literacy in Romania.

According to the report, which analyzed the school population from all education cycles, primary, secondary and high school, numerical illiteracy is placed at over a third (36%) of students, with almost 16% having marked difficulties.

Numerical illiteracy is constantly increasing, from 25% in primary grades to 46% in high school, while students from rural areas have the highest levels of numerical illiteracy (58.16%).

Students from the category with the highest socio-economic status have the lowest percentages of numerical illiteracy The highest level of numerical illiteracy is reached in the 10th grade, when the percentage reaches 54.56%, according to the document. The report on numerical literacy in Romania provides a detailed picture of students’ mathematical skills, broken down by age and grade categories.

Presenting the results, Professor Dragoș Iliescu explained that 35% of students in Romania are in a massive risk area or have very limited numerical skills, a figure that, although lower than the PISA results (approximately 50%), shows a worrying trend of deterioration in mathematical skills as students advance in the school cycles.

“If we look at the areas tested, we were amazed to see that statistical and probabilistic reasoning is something that is taught very vaguely in our schools anyway and it is something that we are terribly deficient in. Extremely simple items cannot be answered correctly even by high school students. Simple items, like if we have an item that says: if the number 3 came out in the lottery last week, is the probability that the number 3 also comes out in this week’s drawing greater, lesser or equal? And most say that the probability is lower. And when I say most, I say 92-93%. And this is reasoning, you don’t necessarily have to do probabilities to understand. It is everyday life reasoning that will lead you to make wrong decisions, financial and other kinds.”

The five functionality categories outlined in the report for each grade are:

A (Excellent)
B (Good)
C (Limited)
D (Very Limited)
E (High Risk)

Categories D and E indicate functional numerical illiteracy, while categories A, B, and C represent numerical functionality.

Results by Educational Cycle:

Primary School (Grades 1-4): 25.04% of students fall into categories D+E (numerical illiteracy).
Middle School (Grades 5-8): 35.59% of students are classified as D+E.
High School (Grades 9-12): 46.31% of students exhibit numerical illiteracy.

Results by Grade:

Grade 1: 22.37% of students are functionally numerically illiterate.
Grade 4: The highest level of numerical literacy, with 76% of students demonstrating functional numerical skills.
Grade 10: The highest level of numerical illiteracy, with 54.56% of students in categories D+E.
Grades 11-12: A slight improvement in numerical skills, with approximately 38-43% of students classified as numerically illiterate.

Boys generally have a better level of numerical functionality than girls, the difference remaining constant from one school cycle to another.

At the same time, there were increased differences in functional numerical illiteracy depending on the environment of origin. Thus, students from rural areas have the highest levels of numerical illiteracy, with 58.16%, while students from large urban areas register the lowest levels, 22.23%.

In the primary cycle, numerical illiteracy is already very high in rural areas (42.86%), compared to large urban areas (15.45%). The differences persist and become more pronounced as students advance to the following cycles, middle school and high school, the report shows.

The Minister of Education, Daniel David, participated in the conference presenting the results of the National Mathematical Literacy Test. “It is clear that the results do not look good,” he declared.

“It is unacceptable in the 12th grade to have close to 50% of people who have this form of functional illiteracy in the area of numeracy. It is something unacceptable for a school. You ask yourself: what is the school doing?”, the Minister of Education added.

Daniel David reiterated that, in his opinion, in Romanian schools “we teach a lot, badly and in a very centralized way.”

“We have to think very seriously about what we are actually doing in school when you have such results. I have always said that although theoretically we all declare that we are talking about competences and trying to transfer competences, the truth is that very few transfer competences in their educational activities. Because competence would mean, not at different times, but at the moment when you talk about something, to bring declarative knowledge, meaning what you know how to say, procedural knowledge, meaning what you know how to do with that thing in the curriculum area and in the life area and what are the values, why it is important to learn this thing.”

Over a Third of Students Are Numerically Illiterate in Romania

Results by Educational Cycle:

Results by Grade:

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