The Ministry is organizing a working group to improve mid-term examinations for schoolchildren

As the ministry announced on Monday, representatives of the Association of Lithuanian Municipalities and heads of municipal education departments, heads of gymnasiums, teachers’ associations, and members of the Lithuanian Students’ Union have been invited to the working group.

According to ŠMSM, the working group, which will be headed by Deputy Minister Ignas Gaižiūnas, is formed in order to harmonize the proposals of different interest groups and ensure that in the future the matriculation exam sessions will take place “stable and reliable”.

The ministry plans to consult with the members of the group before preparing and submitting to the minister for approval legal acts regulating exams and intermediate examinations.

Working group meetings are scheduled once a week.

The ministry promises to decide how mid-term examinations will take place next school year by the end of June, after discussions with the community. ŠMSM intends to present its proposals on Tuesday, when the results of the inspections that have already taken place are discussed at the National Education Agency.

As a result of mid-term examinations earlier in the spring, students, their parents and some teachers were dissatisfied. According to them, some of the tasks were incorrect, too difficult, prepared according to topics of the program that have not yet been released. Educators said that they did not have time to prepare for the process.

Disagreeing with the Prime Minister’s team on how these problems should be solved, Gintautas Jakštas resigned as Minister of Education in April. The Ministry still does not have a permanent head.

The mandatory knowledge test of eleventh graders was held for the first time this year.

Its results were supposed to be an integral part of the matriculation exams, but due to indignation about the tasks, it was decided to allow students to choose this year whether to include the result in the final evaluation of the exam, or to take the full-scale state matriculation exam next year.