In brief
- The examination syllabuses for the eighth grade have been re-approved by a new order. Order of the Minister of Education and Research no. 5.757/2026 approves the syllabuses for the National Evaluation in 11 subjects, set out in Annexes nos. 1-11, and it entered into force on 14 October 2026, the date of publication.
- The substance is not in the order but in the annexes, published separately. The order has four articles on a single page, while the syllabuses take up 58 pages in issue no. 860 bis of the Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial), a 64-page booklet sold for 96 lei.
- The curricular basis stays the same. For 10 of the 11 subjects, the examination syllabus rests on the school curricula approved by Order of the Minister of National Education no. 3.393 of 28 February 2017, so the content list follows the lower secondary material already taught.
- The act does not say which session it applies from. There is no provision on the school year covered and none repealing Order of the Minister of Education no. 4.730/2022, the syllabuses used until now, including in the 2025-2026 school year.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 860 of 14 October 2026, page 9, with Annexes nos. 1-11 in no. 860 bis of 14 October 2026, pages 3-60
In force from: 14 October 2026, the date of publication, because the order sets no later date, and a ministerial order takes effect from publication in the Official Gazette of Romania unless it provides otherwise
From 14 October 2026, pupils finishing the eighth grade have a new set of examination syllabuses. Order no. 5.757/2026 of the Minister of Education and Research, signed on 29 September 2026 and published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 860 of 14 October 2026, approves the syllabuses for the National Evaluation, the national examination taken at the end of the eighth grade, in 11 subjects. Since September 2026, the mark obtained in that examination has once again been the only criterion for allocating places in upper secondary school, after the admission competition was abolished by Law no. 189/2026, so the examination syllabuses are the document that states, down to the last chapter of grammar and the last volume formula, what decides which upper secondary school each child attends.
The order itself is short and says nothing about the subject matter. It has four articles on a single page: Article 1 approves the syllabuses „set out in Annexes nos. 1-11”, Article 2 states that the annexes form an integral part of the order, Article 3 assigns responsibility for implementation, and Article 4 orders publication. The material itself sits in the 11 annexes, published in issue no. 860 bis of the Official Gazette of Romania of the same day, on pages 3 to 60. The order specifies that the bis issue „may be purchased from the public relations centre at Șos. Panduri no. 1, block P33, ground floor, Sector 5, Bucharest”. The booklet runs to 64 pages and costs 96 lei, roughly 1.50 lei a page.
The 11 subjects are, in the order used in Article 1 and in the annexes: Romanian language and literature; Romanian language and literature for schools and classes teaching in Hungarian; Hungarian mother-tongue language and literature; German mother-tongue language and literature; Serbian mother-tongue language and literature; Slovak mother-tongue language and literature; Croatian mother-tongue language and literature; Italian mother-tongue language and literature; Romani mother-tongue language and literature; Ukrainian mother-tongue language and literature; and mathematics. Two are Romanian language syllabuses, eight are mother-tongue syllabuses for the national minorities, and one is for mathematics. The space is shared unevenly: mathematics gets the most pages, nine, Hungarian and Slovak as mother tongues six each, and Romanian language and literature and German as a mother tongue four each.
What it changes in practice
The first effect is one of content: from 14 October 2026 there is, for every examination subject, an official document listing the competences assessed and the content attached to them. In Romanian language and literature, the syllabus groups the material under four general competences, namely the reception of written texts, the writing of texts, the correct and effective use of the language in communication, and the expression of one’s own linguistic and cultural identity, broken down into 24 specific competences. The content list covers the four general themes of lower secondary school, from „Me and my familiar world” to „Reflections on the world”, the narrative, descriptive, dialogic, explanatory and argumentative text patterns, versification, nine figures of speech, from the epithet and the simile through to alliteration, hyperbole and antithesis, and then writing, grammar, spelling, vocabulary, stylistic variation and elements of interculturality. For the standard, the syllabus refers explicitly to the Dicționarul ortografic, ortoepic și morfologic al limbii române, the official spelling, pronunciation and morphology dictionary of Romanian, third edition of 2021, known as DOOM 3, and to the Dicționarul explicativ al limbii române, the explanatory dictionary of the language.
In mathematics, the syllabus is built on six general competences, from identifying mathematical data and relations to the mathematical modelling of a given situation, and beneath them sit 126 specific competences, each marked with the school year in which it is formed, from the fifth to the eighth grade. The content is divided into four domains: sets and numbers; algebra; geometry; and then data handling, probability and elements of mathematical statistics. The material runs from operations with natural numbers and divisibility rules to radicals and rationalising the denominator, from the special product formulas and systems of two linear equations to functions of the form f(x) = ax + b, and in geometry from angles and congruent triangles to the theorem of the three perpendiculars, the frustum of a pyramid, the frustum of a cone, and the surface area and volume of the sphere. Trigonometry appears only in the right-angled triangle, with sine, cosine, tangent and cotangent, while statistics stops at frequency, mean, median, mode and range.
The second effect is one of limits: what is not in the syllabus cannot appear in an examination paper. The Romanian language and literature syllabus states that the examination papers assess the competences and the content set out in the syllabus, and that the marking schemes „provide for marks to be awarded for any correct way of answering the questions”. In both Romanian and mathematics, a closing note specifies that „the content will be approached from the perspective of the general and specific competences”, so candidates are not asked to reproduce a list but to use it. The mathematics syllabus adds two notation conventions that matter when papers are marked: the notation AB means, depending on the context, the line, the segment or the length of the segment, while the notation for an angle covers both the angle and its measure.
The third effect is administrative. Article 3 places responsibility for implementation on five categories of body: the Directorate-General for Equity and Performance in Pre-University Education, the Directorate-General for Minorities and Desegregation, the National Centre for Curriculum and Assessment, which is the body that draws up the papers and the marking schemes, the county school inspectorates and that of the Municipality of Bucharest, and the schools themselves. For teachers and head teachers, this means that the syllabuses have to be made available to pupils and used as the reference for mock examinations and revision work, not kept in a file at the inspectorate.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
Until this order, the examination syllabuses for the eighth grade were those approved by Order of the Minister of Education no. 4.730/2022, an act which, in its very title, approved them „for the 2022-2023 school year”. Those syllabuses were kept alive from one year to the next through the annual order organising the examination: for the 2025-2026 school year, Article 3 of organising Order no. 6.058/2025, published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 819 of 4 September 2025, provides that the valid syllabuses are those approved by the 2022 order. Four National Evaluation sessions were therefore sat on a document designed for the 2023 session.
The substantive novelty of Order no. 5.757/2026 is precisely the breaking of that chain: the syllabuses are no longer tied to a particular school year. The title no longer refers to any session, and the text contains no article stating when it applies from. For 10 of the 11 subjects, however, the curricular basis remains unchanged: each syllabus declares that it has been drawn up in accordance with the school curricula approved by Order of the Minister of National Education no. 3.393 of 28 February 2017, that is, exactly the lower secondary curricula that pupils have been taught under for nine years. Anyone revising from the old syllabus will not find unfamiliar chapters.
The only exception is Annex no. 2, the syllabus for Romanian language and literature for schools and classes teaching in Hungarian. There, the examination syllabus rests on two school curricula at the same time: the 2017 one and the new one, approved by an order of the Minister of Education and Research of 27 August 2026, no. 5.111, and published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 719 bis of 28 August 2026. The text indeed speaks in the plural, of the competences and the content „in the present syllabuses” and of the detail set out in „the school curricula in force”. It is the only subject whose examination material is referred to a curriculum updated in 2026, and its list of specific competences is also the longest of the language syllabuses: ten competences for the reception of written texts alone, against eight in Romanian language and literature.
What has not changed at all is the manner of publication. As in 2022, the syllabuses bypass the ordinary issue of the Official Gazette of Romania and end up in a bis issue, which the reader buys separately. An order published on one page refers, in a footnote, to 58 pages that the parent or the pupil has to find elsewhere.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- The examination syllabuses are no longer tied to the 2022-2023 school year, so they no longer have to be extended each year by a cross-reference in the organising order, and the applicable text can be found directly rather than at the end of a chain of three acts.
- For each of the 11 subjects there is a separate document, with the competences and the content on the same page, so a pupil can check whether a chapter is examinable without having to ask the teacher.
- The curricular basis remains the 2017 school curriculum for 10 of the 11 subjects, so the re-approval produces no jump in subject matter in the middle of the school year.
- The national minorities receive, on the same day and in the same act, syllabuses for all eight mother tongues examined at the National Evaluation, rather than separate orders on different dates.
- The notation conventions for segments and angles are set out in black and white in the mathematics syllabus, which closes off a classic source of disputes over marking and appeals.
- Romanian language and literature for schools teaching in Hungarian is aligned with the new school curriculum of August 2026, not only with one that is nine years old.
What remains a problem
- The order does not say which session the syllabuses apply from, so an eighth-grade pupil cannot establish, by reading the act, whether their examination will be set on these syllabuses or on those from 2022.
- The 2022 syllabuses, approved by Order of the Minister of Education no. 4.730/2022, are not repealed, so two acts approve syllabuses for the same examination in parallel.
- The substance, 58 pages, appears only in the bis issue, a 64-page booklet costing 96 lei, and the order points to no free, publicly available version of the syllabuses.
- The act says nothing about what differs from the previous syllabuses, so teachers have to compare two documents of several dozen pages themselves, chapter by chapter.
- The syllabuses contain no sample papers and no breakdown of marks by type of question, information that in practice only becomes known from the models the ministry publishes separately.
- Annex no. 2 refers to two school curricula at once without specifying what is examinable from each, and if the two differ the pupil has no way of knowing which version counts.
Practical advice
- If you have a child in the eighth grade, ask the school for the examination syllabus for their subject and compare it with their notebook: the Romanian language and literature syllabus lists explicitly the figures of speech, the text patterns and the grammar chapters that are assessed, so it tells you what can and cannot be asked in a paper.
- In mathematics, use the school-year marking in front of each specific competence. The 126 competences are labelled from the fifth to the eighth grade, so it is immediately clear how much of the examination comes from the material of earlier years rather than from the eighth grade.
- Check the standard against DOOM 3, the third edition of 2021, which the Romanian language and literature syllabus gives as the reference. A syllable-division rule or a stress pattern learned from an older edition can cost marks in the written paper.
- Do not buy the bis issue unless you need it on paper. The syllabuses are usually also published on the website of the Ministry of Education and Research, in the National Evaluation section, and the text is the same as in the Official Gazette of Romania.
- For the 2027 session, follow the annual order organising the National Evaluation. Until now it has been the act that showed which syllabuses were valid, and the timetable of the papers is approved by the same procedure.
- Teachers of mother tongues should read the introductory note to their own annex, not only the content list: in Romanian language and literature for schools teaching in Hungarian, the examination syllabus refers to two school curricula, one from 2017 and one from August 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Is the material examined at the National Evaluation changing?
Where can I read the syllabuses, if they are not in the ordinary issue of the Official Gazette of Romania?
How many subjects have a syllabus, and which are they?
What does mathematics cover?
Does the new order replace the 2022 syllabuses?
From what date does the order apply?
Do the syllabuses also contain sample papers or marking schemes?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- Article 1 and Article 2, read together with the absence of any provision on temporal application and of any repeal. The order approves the syllabuses for the National Evaluation of pupils completing the eighth grade without showing which session or school year they apply to and without repealing Order of the Minister of Education no. 4.730/2022, the act which approved the syllabuses for the same examination and which was indicated as still applicable for the 2025-2026 school year, by Article 3 of Order of the Minister of Education and Research no. 6.058/2025. Two equally well-supported conclusions follow from the published text: either the new syllabuses govern the first session after publication, because the order has been in force since 14 October 2026 and has no limited temporal scope, or the 2022 syllabuses remain applicable until an order organising the examination indicates others, as has happened every year since 2023. The question is not theoretical: the answer determines the material on which an entire cohort of pupils is revising.
Editorial analysis
The order is, at bottom, a piece of legislative housekeeping that the system had been putting off for four years. The examination syllabuses for the eighth grade were still those approved for the 2022-2023 school year and reached each new cohort through a cross-reference in the annual organising order, a mechanism that works right up to the day someone forgets the cross-reference. Re-approving them in an act that makes no reference to a school year is the right solution. Unfortunately, the act solves the problem of age and replaces it with one of date: the order that takes the school year out of the title forgets to put in its place a provision on the session it applies from, and the 2022 order remains in force alongside it.
The second thing that becomes visible only once you compare the act with the annexes is the imbalance between legal weight and content weight. The order takes up one page in issue no. 860, the annexes take 58 pages in issue no. 860 bis, and the ratio between them, one to 58, says who actually carries the information. A reader who opens the ordinary issue of the Official Gazette of Romania learns only that some syllabuses have been approved, not what they contain. To see the content, they have to buy a 64-page booklet for 96 lei, which is more than a textbook costs. That the text can also be found on the ministry’s website does not excuse the form: it is official publication that produces legal effects, and here that is the hardest version to get at.
The third element deserves to be read as a signal about the state of the curriculum. Ten of the 11 syllabuses rest on the school curricula of 28 February 2017, that is, on a lower secondary curriculum which, by the next session, will be a decade old. The only subject referred to a new school curriculum, approved in August 2026, is Romanian language and literature for schools and classes teaching in Hungarian, and there the examination syllabus refers simultaneously to the old and the new school curriculum, without saying what happens if the two do not require the same thing. In a subject with a compulsory written paper, the simultaneous reference to two school curricula leaves a decision of education policy to the person who sets the paper. The comparison is instructive in figures too: the Romanian language and literature syllabus describes 24 specific competences, the mathematics one 126, marked by school year, two different cultures of drafting the same type of document, one synthetic, the other inventorial.
One last detail, about timing. The approval memorandum is dated 28 September 2026, the order is signed the following day, and publication comes 15 days later, on 14 October 2026. For an act that does not change the subject matter, the delay is immaterial. If the same mechanism is used in a future year for a syllabus with real changes of content, the interval between signature and publication, together with the absence of any provision on the applicable session, will become exactly the kind of ambiguity that is settled in court rather than in the classroom.
What should be changed
- An article fixing the session from which the syllabuses apply, along the lines of „starting with the National Evaluation of the 2026-2027 school year”. Practical effect: pupils and teachers learn from the act, not from the press or from circulars, what the examination is set on.
- Express repeal of Order of the Minister of Education no. 4.730/2022. The practical result: the situation in which two orders approve syllabuses for the same examination disappears, and the annual organising order no longer has to arbitrate between them.
- A correspondence section, at the start of each annex, between the new syllabus and the one it replaces, listing the chapters added and those removed. The consequence: a teacher can redo their planning in a few minutes instead of after a comparative reading of two documents dozens of pages long.
- Publication of the annexes in the ordinary issue, or at least a statement in the order of where the syllabuses can be read free of charge. In practice, access to the examination material would no longer depend on buying a booklet for 96 lei.
- For Annex no. 2, a rule of priority between the 2017 school curriculum and that of August 2026, applicable where the two differ. Practical effect: the person setting the paper and the pupil work from the same text, and an appeal cannot rest on the choice between two curricula.
- A schedule for revising the examination syllabuses, linked to the revision of the school curricula, for instance a compulsory re-approval whenever the lower secondary curriculum is amended. That way, four sessions are never again sat on a syllabus designed for a different school year.
Original text of the legal act
The text below is reproduced in Romanian, the official form of publication.
The full text, as published in the Official Gazette of Romania
Official Gazette of Romania no. 860 of 14 October 2026, page 9, with Annexes nos. 1-11 in no. 860 bis of 14 October 2026, pages 3-60 16 pages PDF, 100 KB the act starts on page 9
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The other editions cited: nr. 860 bis/2026
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