THE CHANGE IN EDUCATION

The present paper deals with presenting the results of a research that has highlighted the need of a major change within the Romanian educational system and the main issues connected with this change: the teacher-student relationship, the teaching activity, the evaluation activity, the activity in the classroom. Our research has been carried out according to the questionnaire semistructured interview method. 1332 subjects from Alba County pre-university levels got involved into our research.

The purpose of this research is to identify the need of a change in Romanian educational system. Because the approached matter is a very complex one, the research’s hypotheses were stated according to the fourth directions followed.

We also started from the idea that in general the teachers agree about the necessity of changing the Romanian educational system and we stated the following hypotheses:
1. The teacher-student relationship should change, and this should affect as well teacher’s components as student’s components.
2. The teaching activity should change by replacing the traditional teaching methods with critical thinking methods based on the principles of active learning.
3. The evaluation activity should change by replacing the traditional evaluation methods with alternative evaluation methods.
4. The activity in the classroom should change by replacing the frontal activity with group activity.

The research objectives were stated in accordance with the theoretical requirements of change the Romanian educational system as they were identified in the speciality literature. These are:
1. To question as many teachers as possible in order to obtain results close to reality;
2. To develop the research so that it will cover all the four change components subject to hypotheses;
3. To correlate the quantitative with the qualitative data analyses in order to reveal not only the need of change but also the aspects that must be aimed by this change;
4. To state, based on the questionnaire, some relevant conclusions regarding the need of a change in the Romanian educational system.

In the end it is all about the teacher and how he decides to accept and apply these so very necessary changes for education. Why the teacher? … because the center in education is the teacher-student relationship which is fundamental for the teaching-learning activity. In this relationship the responsibility belongs firstly to the teacher who must awake the student’s conscience that will lead to the acceptance of the human freedom and the responsibilities that arise from it.