Questionnaires with a sexual tone for students in the 8th grade, in a school in Constanța. The mother of one of the students went public after she was shocked to learn that her son had been forced to answer a set of questions about his private life. “How do you identify yourself? 1. Boy; 2. Girl; 3. Other” was just one of them. Contacted by the journalists from Replica Online, the head of IȘJ Constanța says that he did not know about the situation.
The questionnaire with 54 questions, disputed by the parents, was given to the students from School no. 38 of Constanța on May 23, 2023, at the end of the TIMMS testing – a European-level assessment that measures the level of fourth and eighth grade students in mathematics and science. The parents learned from their children that before leaving the classrooms, the teenagers were required to complete a second questionnaire, with answers to questions such as:
- How do you identify yourself? / 1. Boy; 2. Girl; 3. Others
- do you have your room
- Do your parents live in Romania?
- Do you have a dishwasher, laundry?
- What education do your parents have?
“After I called the lady director to get more information about that quiz, she said she didn’t know about the quiz, then came back and said she had contacted the test administrator, confirming its existence, but calming me down that these questionnaires are non-nominal. However, the children received a unique access code and password, which means that these tests are nominal”, said Irina Rotariu, the mother of the 8th grade student, to the quoted source .
The parent believes that the private and family life of the students would have been violated through this questionnaire.
“I believe that the mentioned very seriously violates Article 7 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, i.e. respect for private and family life, as well as Article 8 on the protection of personal data, as well as Article 205 “unlawful deprivation of liberty” of the law 286/ 2009 of the Criminal Code, because the children were told to stay in the banks to complete an unannounced questionnaire for which the parents’ verbal or written consent was not obtained. I consider this attitude of the test administrator to be deprivation of liberty. all the mentioned I have written evidence as well as a video”, says Irina Rotariu.
Contacted by the journalists from Replica Online, the head of IȘJ Constanța, Sorin Mihai, says that the institution he leads has nothing to do with the testing, nor with the questionnaire contested by the parents.
“TIMMS are organized by PISA, we don’t have their version on paper, I don’t know what it looks like or what it refers to, or what was formulated there. Everything is password protected and every student logs in. They got in touch directly with the educational institutions, the tests are on some electronic devices. From what I know, the tests are administered at the European level, and here they are only translated. I have not seen these tests, so I cannot comment. I do not know the procedure, we have no role in this. I don’t know if there were such questions, as that parent says. We don’t have access to those tests, the platform is closed, that’s why I can’t comment,” said Sorin Mihai, the school inspector general IȘJ Constanța, for the cited source.
It wouldn’t be the first time students were given inappropriate tests in class, claims the eighth-grader’s mother. Recently, a test in Biology about the “Role of the sexes” caused an uproar among parents. The student had to read the sentences and give his opinion on a scale from 1 to 5, where 1. was ‘strongly agree’ and 5. was ‘strongly disagree’:
- Single men are not normal.
- Men who stay at home and their wives work are abnormal.
- Most men want to marry virgins.
Editor: Izabela Zaharia
