The second foreign language in Romanian high schools is tied to the specialisation: enter “applied modern language 2”

An order barely one page long in the Official Gazette replaces 155 pages of annexes and, read closely, moves the Romanian high school in a precise direction: the second foreign language is no longer learned separately from the specialisation, but inside it. Through Order No. 4.152/2026, the Ministry of Education and Research has amended Annexes Nos. 1-38 to Order No. 4.350/2025, the act that had approved the framework curricula for full-time upper secondary education. It is the ministry’s second major intervention in the architecture of the high school in the same month, after the one by which the schools’ operating regulations were rewritten.

Formally, the order replaces all the annexes in full. In practice, a comparison between the version published in June 2025 and the current one shows that the structure of the high school remains untouched: the same curricular areas, the same common core, the same number of hours. The changes are concentrated almost exclusively on modern languages, to which are added a broadening of the integrated approach and a series of drafting corrections.

What it changes in practice

The central change appears in more than 15 of the 38 annexes. Where the 2025 framework curricula provided, within the pupil-chosen curriculum segment, the subject “Modern language 2 (deepening elective)”, the current text provides “Applied modern language 2 (integrated elective)”. The difference is not cosmetic. A deepening elective meant more hours of the same subject, taught in the same way. An integrated elective means a subject built at the intersection between the foreign language and the pupil’s specialisation, “with a view to developing language competences in relation to the track and the specialisation”, as the new wording in the annexes puts it.

In practical terms: a pupil in mathematics and computer science would learn English or German through texts and situations from their own field, not through the same learning units as a pupil in philology or theology. The same logic extends further: the annexes also introduce “Modern language 3 (elective as a new subject)”, for pupils who want a third language.

The second change concerns the national offer of electives. The explanatory note to the framework curricula lists the categories from which a pupil may choose elective subjects. In the 2025 version there were three categories: core subjects in the national offer, subjects recommended through the national offer, and proposals made by the school itself. A new category is now inserted in second position: “subjects that integrate modern-language learning into applied contexts, specific to the track and the specialisation or vocational qualification”. The categories become four, and modern languages thereby gain a status of their own in the national offer, not only in individual curricula.

The third change concerns technological high schools, where the effect is the most concrete. “Applied modern language 2” enters the framework curriculum of the technical track as a distinct subject, and the total hours budgets increase: from 1,080 to 1,132 hours and from 1,020 to 1,048 hours, depending on the segment concerned. Also in the technological track, the list of specialist teaching staff allowed to teach the integrated subjects is broadened. Where the 2025 text said “mathematics, physics, chemistry”, respectively “mathematics, chemistry, biology”, the current text says “modern languages, mathematics, physics, chemistry”, respectively “modern languages, mathematics, chemistry, biology”.

Finally, the integrated approach is broadened beyond languages. In the theoretical track, integrated electives were described as placing “emphasis on integrated approaches that draw on mathematics and physics”. The wording is now “integrated approaches that draw mainly on subjects from the Mathematics and natural sciences curricular area, as well as subjects from the Arts curricular area”. This is the explicit move from STEM to STEAM, that is, the inclusion of the arts in interdisciplinary approaches, a principle the explanatory note already invokes as a benchmark.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

To head off a predictable confusion: the order does not amend the common core and does not change the number of compulsory hours. The structure approved in June 2025 remains identical: 15 subjects in the 9th and 10th grades, with 19 and 20 hours a week respectively; 12 subjects in the 11th grade, with 14 hours; 11 subjects in the 12th grade, with 13 hours. The subjects introduced last year also remain unchanged, such as “The history of the Jews. The Holocaust” in the 11th grade and “The history of communism in Romania” in the 12th grade, both with one hour a week, or the presence of ICT across all four years, with elements of cybersecurity, artificial intelligence and the basics of programming. Anyone looking in this order for a reform of the compulsory subjects will not find one.

What does change, beyond modern languages, are small things that nonetheless matter to schools. In the pedagogical track, the way the teaching-practice hours are allocated is clarified: one third for the didactics of music education, one third for the didactics of art education and one third for theatre education, where there is no specialist teacher for theatre education. The total tables for the pupil-chosen curriculum are simplified: instead of two separate rows, “minimum” and “maximum”, there is now a single row. In one of the annexes, the hours range for subjects set through the school’s annual offer changes from “1-3” to “0-2” hours in one year of study, which means the school may allocate no hours at all in that segment.

The remaining changes are matters of drafting: the titles of the annexes for the music and choreography specialisations drop the reference to “all sections and subsections”; the phrase “all specialisations/vocational qualifications” becomes “all vocational qualifications” in the technological track; “new subject” is reordered in the Romanian wording; and a 2025 typo, “displina”, is corrected to “disciplina” in the common-core table. These are exactly the kind of corrections that change nothing for a pupil, but they explain why the ministry preferred to republish all the annexes rather than issue a list of point-by-point amendments.

One point that matters to parents and teachers: the order does not set a school year of its own for application. According to the explanatory note, the application of high-school framework curricula is progressive: for a period, both the new framework curricula and those valid for the 2024-2025 school year will be in application simultaneously. The syllabuses for the subjects in the framework curricula are to be drawn up and approved separately, by ministerial order, while for the fields and vocational qualifications in technological education the curricula are developed by the National Centre for the Development of Vocational and Technical Education. In other words: “applied modern language 2” now exists in the framework curriculum, but the syllabus it is actually taught from is still to come.

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