Students who took mid-term exams had to deal with a last-minute rescheduled exam time, texts of unequal length during mid-term exams in Lithuanian and other languages, and mid-term exams in mathematics that did not match the level.
“Not irony, not even sarcasm, here is a sardonic context, in which we see that the system no longer withstands any kind of criticism and even in such simple matters unfortunate misunderstandings occur”, Saulius Jurkevičius assessed the malfunctions that arose during the interim inspections.
The director of the Vilnius Lyceum draws attention to the fact that not a single party was ready for the interim settlements: neither the students, nor the teachers, nor the organizers.
“There was no provision for the number of days a student should have before the midterm because he has to concentrate for that midterm. You can’t just jump out and take an exam like that, when the value of that exam is huge, it’s included in the total number of points,” the school’s director notes on the Radio News program.
Meanwhile, he equates the work of teachers at the moment to fighting at the front without weapons, because they are forced to teach children without textbooks for a while. So due to a complete lack of preparation, “water has started to leak through all the holes in the dam” and the education system is now in a “deplorable state”.
For students next year, the suffering will be doubled
S. Jurkevičius admits that earlier there was less moaning and such a term as stress did not seem to exist at all. The system at that time was accepted as a matter of course, he said, and now the minimum tests put extra stress on modern students. At the same time, it is clear that the situation will not improve soon.
“We grew up in exactly such a story, as they say, that you need to suffer constantly. And the result of that suffering can be seen in the future. Now, if you think about the next year, the suffering will double, because, of course, the flows will double and there are no opportunities to ensure the quality, so that something could fundamentally improve”, he assesses the future of the students.
However, according to him, the main problem at the moment is that in order to solve the problem, recalculation of the results of the students’ interim reports has been started. Inequality has arisen because the results of students who do well in mid-term tests do not change while the rest rise.
“When there’s that paid education again, admission, it all kind of takes on some very dirty moment of expression. So wait, why do you need to recalculate now, raise the salary of some and leave the same for others?
Although one really worked and prepared very intensively and passed that system, even if the tasks were perhaps of poor quality, while others had enough difficulty”, emphasizes the director of the Vilnius Lyceum.
Therefore, receiving a final assessment or enrolling in higher education for students who passed midterms without raising their grade can be detrimental, because it is impossible for them to improve their result when it is already good.
“Well, for example, you got the best grade in math, your friend got a little worse. After the decision of a certain commission, he was recalculated and he was pushed to you.
Now you will take the Lithuanian language exam. If you get less, and maybe that little bit more, you will come out ahead in the final context”, he explains how raising the grades of the rest can harm students who have passed well.
Even the students who missed the midterms were affected by it
The director of the Vilnius Lyceum emphasizes that interim assessments affect not only the students who keep them, the rest lose many lessons, because the inspections are carried out in the middle of the year and during lessons.
According to S. Jurkevičius, the process should be carried out when students finish the school year and have learned the topics according to the program, and not in the middle of the school year. Due to the wrongly chosen time, now the main task for the remaining students is to find their way in the schedule changes.
“One of the teachers said today that one of the worst things happening in schools right now is that a large number of students are missing a significant number of lessons. “Chemistry and physics classes are not held because there are mid-term examinations, because there are only teachers and children cannot come to school at a certain time,” he explains.
According to S. Jurkevičius, interim settlements are like imaginary reforms and the organizers realized too late that the implementation failed. However, in his opinion, seeing the disorganization, the most rational solution would have been to stop the process abruptly and apologize.
“For Imaginary reforms, which are mostly related to the receipt of certain funds and the absorption of those funds, various projects of this level are organized.
Here, practically for a whole month, some kind of meaningless, self-serving procedure has been taking place, which is uncoordinated and low-quality in all aspects. Now we can see that those organizers are probably already starting to realize their mistakes,” the head of the school mentions.
The whole conversation Listen to the “Persona grata” program of “Knowledge Radio” here:
Tags: Prestigious school principal speaks wont Unfortunate misunderstandings
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