The authorities are shrugging their shoulders when it comes to correcting graduation theses, and hundreds of Hungarian students and parents are demanding the settlement of the unfair situation in a petition.
The representatives of the Hungarian parents faced a denial of responsibility at the Cluj-Napoca inspectorate on Wednesday when they tried to find a solution to mark the papers written in Romanian language and literature by the Hungarian students in Cluj-Napoca, as in other Transylvanian counties.
The representatives of the Cluj-Napoca matriculation committee - refuting the claim of State Secretary Zoltán Kallós - deny that they had been informed about the marking of the papers and referred the parents to the Minister of Education. In the meantime, hundreds of Hungarian students and parents are demanding a settlement of the unfair situation in a petition.
On Wednesday, Attila Király and Zsófia Hegedűs brought a transcript signed by representatives of the parents' association of Hungarian schools in Cluj County to the school inspectorate. The president of the parents' association of the Báthory Parents' Association and the Apáczai Csere János Theoretical High School was received by a six-person committee and the deputy superintendent Adelhaida Kerekes.
The main purpose of the meeting initiated by the parents was to find out what exactly happened, why the papers of the Hungarian students were not marked in Cluj County, as was the case in other Transylvanian counties.
"They explained to us that since no official request or instruction had previously been received from the Ministry of Education, they were not obliged to mark it. When asked why this was possible in other counties, they could not answer, they emphasized that they are only responsible for themselves," Attila Király explained to Krónika.
He added that the inspectorate repeatedly pointed out that in the period before the exams, they did not receive the information about the marking, they did not talk about it at the meetings, and they did not even address it separately at the last big meeting on Friday.
At the same time, they asked the representatives of the parents' association to send their letter directly to the ministry, addressed to the State Secretary for Education Zoltán Kallós, asking him to urgently find a solution to the problem.
By the way, the transcript was signed by representatives of the István Báthory Theoretical High School, the János Apáczai Csere Theoretical High School, the János Zsigmond Unitarian College, the parents' association of the Waldorf and Dési schools. Attila Király pointed out that, due to lack of time, only a few educational institutions were contacted, according to him, many more schools would have stood up for their students.
In the document, they request that the Romanian graduation theses of the Hungarian students be rescanned and sent to teachers who are used to minority students. If this is not possible, they ask that those students whose results are very low compared to their general learning results, at least after an appeal, have their papers sent to a teacher in a Hungarian school.
"If I understood correctly, the development of the situation depends on the minister of education, he has to sign a decree that can be used to correct this mistake. If this happens, then it would be very important to learn from it, because
children's lives are not a game, and we cannot leave such a deep mark on them, because no matter what decision is made, there will be those who will feel it is unfair," said the president of the Báthory Parents' Association.
At the same time, more than 400 people have already signed the petition, which was launched by Hungarian parents and adult students in Cluj County on July 2. In a letter addressed to the Bucharest Ministry of Education and the National Anti-Discrimination Council (CNCD), the parents demand an urgent solution to the serious discrimination against their children by the Cluj county matriculation examination boards, which did not follow the recommendations of Zoltán Kallós, the state secretary for education, and did not select the matriculation theses in accordance with the current regulations .
"We believe that the rights offered and obtained at the national level, such as the rights of minority students, cannot be sabotaged without consequences. However, until those who sabotaged the application of the law and discriminated against the Hungarian students of Cluj County are held accountable, we demand that the State Secretariat of the Ministry of Education effectively close this case so that our children can also enjoy these rights," reads the petition.
Zoltán Kallós, the Secretary of State for National Minority Education at the Romanian Ministry of Education, told Krónika on Tuesday that during last week's briefing, he asked the leaders of the county matriculation examination committees to allow the marking of the papers of Hungarian students in order for them to be corrected by teachers who are Hungarian. they teach in language classes.
Kallós stated that he repeated this request on Monday morning, before the beginning of the Romanian language and literature written exam, while the state secretary admitted that the designation was not prohibited by law, but it was not mandatory either.
In the meantime, member of parliament Csoma Botond spoke out about the highly publicized case, and in a post posted on her social media page on Wednesday, she announced that since the situation erupted due to the improvement of Romanian language and literature graduation papers, she has been in constant contact with parents in Cluj and representatives of the parents' associations of Hungarian schools. According to him, they are trying to remedy the situation, he consulted with a lawyer in order to draft a submission.
"We ask for two things, to make it possible for the papers of the Hungarian students to be corrected by Romanian teachers who teach in the Hungarian department, if this is no longer possible, then after the appeal, the papers should be sent to teachers who meet the conditions stated above," he wrote president of the RMDSZ Cluj county organization.
After Wednesday's meeting, Kolozs County Deputy Inspector General Adelhaida Kerekes confirmed to Maszol.ro her previous statement that, in the absence of an official transcript, the matriculation committee acted correctly when they did not mark the papers of the Hungarian students, which was also the conclusion reached at the meeting. At the same time, Kerekes is extremely optimistic amid the indignation of the Hungarian high school graduates and their parents, and he remarked to the portal: "there will be good results, because the students from Cluj County are good."
Cover photo: Discrimination against a group of Hungarian students
Source: Krónika.ro/Haáz Vince
