Practical training through laboratory experiments, alternative textbooks published only after a professional approval, simplifying the school curriculum and better guidance for students towards professions demanded by the labor market are a few conclusions of the report recently released at a press conference held by the Academic Society in Romania, in partnership with the Academy of Advocacy and SIVECO Romania.

The event is part of the project undertaken by the Academic Society of Romania - How do we teach sciences in school? A proposal for reform - and it is part of a broader effort to reform the teaching of exact sciences.

Participants in the public hearings come to some important conclusions on how the Romanian education should develop.

• A particular concern must be given to the minimum, standard endowment of school laboratories.
• The school should be democratic at the basis (providing access and equal opportunities for all), but should cultivate elites too.
• To have special programs for more gifted and exceptional students, and vice versa, for students with difficulties.
• The teacher, the manual and the computer should support and capitalize on each other in the modern education process.
• The computer should be seen as part of the education process and not as formal replacement of the manual or school teacher. Therefore, the computer should be used as a tool for teaching and learning, not just for its sake.
• The school should be prepared to face the challenges that will continue in the future in terms of Baccalaureate tests, the national secondary school tests and even the PISA type of tests. This is because the test-based examination will continue to be the meeting place of common objectives in a perfect chorus of all stakeholders: parents, educators and students to achieve at all costs (including attempted fraud), but not consistently and based on skills, as good rankings as possible.
• Key skills (mathematics, physics, science and technology, the life-long learning, and digital ones) are essential to any school graduate that will live and work in the knowledge based economy.

More on this report can be read on the website www.sar.org.ro