Not a Decline, but a Fall. Why Does the Quality of School Education Decrease?

Traditionally, autumn begins in schools with the Day of Knowledge. And this is a good reason to talk openly about this knowledge, namely about the quality of education in our country. It is not the fact that has made us smaller in Ukraine. What can replace the quantity? Only by the quality of human capital. And that is why the problem of the decline in the quality of education in Ukraine becomes incredibly relevant for us.

And do we know what knowledge our students have? No, because we do not have our own system of monitoring the quality of school education, nor its concept (although there were two monitoring of the quality of primary education, and it is good that they were still conducted). Therefore, we only have to guess what is really happening at school and be satisfied with the results of the External independent evaluation and the international study called the Program for International Student Assessmen (PISA). By the way, after one of these studies in our country, attention was paid to problems with mathematics. However, it is worth noting that all these data do not give a complete picture, because they do not cover all schoolchildren and we do not see the entire education system in a vertical section. And if we do not have a database of verified data collected over different years, we cannot clearly understand the strengths and weaknesses of our education. And therefore, we will have to plan educational policy and reforms without knowing what should be paid special attention to and what should be taken into account to improve our education system. Now, in principle, this is exactly what we have been doing for many years.

On the eve of September 1, I discussed with a university teacher that I know about the admissions campaign. She teaches at universities where applicants with high competitive scores go, that is, the strongest school graduates. "Every year, we see that the level of those who come to us from school is falling," she said. " In the last few years, one can observe not just a decline in the quality of education, but even a fall." Students do not know how to work with information in a basic way, think, analyze, express and justify their opinion. They are not motivated, because they do not understand that in order to achieve something, it is important to study very well and diligently. Students do not realize that without diligent study there will be no success in life. And this is reflected in their attitude to education, in the way they choose a university, a profession. Moreover, I am faced with the fact that students aggressively defend their right not to study and not to put in extra effort, and this can be called a collapse in education."

In today's dynamic world, no school, even the best, will provide eternal universal knowledge and skills that will last a lifetime. In today's conditions, a person will have to constantly learn and relearn something again in order to stay on the labor market and feel comfortable there. Therefore, the school should teach to learn, to instill an interest in finding new knowledge and the ability to master it by making one's own efforts. Does the school fulfill this task today?

A partial answer to this question can be seen in the results of the study called the Program for International Student Assessmen (PISA)-2022. In addition to information about the fall in the level of knowledge, the National Report contains an analysis of typical errors made by our schoolchildren (15-year-olds participate in the study) while performing tasks. It was difficult for our teenagers to do tasks in which they had to understand what they had read, think critically and systematically, be able to logically justify their conclusions and clearly formulate their opinion, distinguish facts from judgments.

In our country, it is customary to say that all the problems in the education system arose because of covid and the war. Yes, they really caused great educational losses, the real volumes of which we do not even know (because no one measured them). However, it is worth honestly admitting that the war and covid hit an already faulty education system that was not functioning very well and that our educational losses began a long time ago. It is worth recalling the results of the External independent evaluation of different years, the results of domestic monitoring of the quality of primary education and international studies (and not only Program for International Student Assessmen (PISA), but also Trends in Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)). Every time after they were published, society was very worried, experts discussed what to do, and various ministers promised to take decisive steps to correct the situation... But the problems remained and had already entered a chronic stage. I can illustrate them with examples that I chose from ZN.UA publications.

The unsatisfactory quality of education is an old and well-known problem. All educational strategies, plans and doctrines that have been adopted in Ukrainian education since 1993 begin with the fact that the quality of education does not meet the needs of society. But we almost always tried to solve them in the same ways, namely competence training, a person-oriented approach. And, of course, "teachers are important." Some new details and new implementations were added to these ideas every time, but the essence remained unchanged. These mantras sound good and move from strategy to strategy, as well as statements of the press services of the current Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine.

The attitude towards education in our country in society always varies from "it has degraded, and children are degrading" to "everything is great, we are making another great reform that has ever existed." But education did not degrade, and neither did the children. It simply remained in the past while the world changed. Because ideas from 20-30 years ago cannot work effectively next to artificial intelligence. And we need to look for new solutions.

I have been writing about education for a very long time, and in informal and official meetings with officials I have heard various reasons why we have problems with quality. Traditional explanations sound like this: teachers are conservative (sounds most often), children don't want / can't / don't have the opportunity, there are no funds, the distance form of education is to blame for everything. Of course, there are many different factors, both objective and subjective. But for some reason, another important factor is never mentioned, namely the educational policy of our country. There are key issues that can only be resolved by decisions of state authorities.

First, it is necessary to immediately adopt the State program for monitoring the quality of education: to develop a methodology, to determine the terms of conducting research, responsible parties, sources of funding.

Second, it is important to support teachers. Because at the primary level, the reform does not take place in the offices of its authors, but in the school, by the hands of teachers. All the ministers supposedly understand this, but nothing changes in the position of teachers. Their salary is the lowest in the economy, and so is their social status.

Let's recall how the current reform of the New Ukrainian School began. In the communication strategy of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine for 2017–2020, at the very start of the New Ukrainian School, it was clearly explained to the public that 90% of teachers are conservative, not used to thinking and acting independently, and will wait for directives and clear instructions. In addition, instead of comprehensive support and faith, teachers felt pressure and mistrust. Teaching is an extremely difficult and responsible mission, and it cannot be accomplished without public support (I am not even mentioning financial support).

In order for the education system to be modern, flexible, able to quickly respond to challenges and to have significant achievements, it needs a lot of democracy and freedom, and therefore trust. In my opinion, the idea that reforms are made only according to directives also originates from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Do we want a frightened obedient teacher to be able to raise us a strong, free democratic personality? This will not happen.

By the way, about directives. Recently, a new fact about teachers was presented to society: 40% of those who took part in the survey "New Ukrainian School" in grades 5-6: implementation challenges" could not explain how the approaches in the implementation of the New Ukrainian School differ from the previous approach to secondary education. Perhaps they should not be condemned for this, the problem is not with the teachers, but with the fact that the king is naked? I offer readers an experiment: find the difference between excerpts from ministerial documents. Document A — for 2008, B — for 2019 (reform of the New Ukrainian School).

A: "A new stage in the development of school education is associated with the introduction of a competency-based approach to the formation of content and the organization of the educational process...

Education with a competency approach is focused on practical results, experience of personal activity, which leads to fundamental changes in the organization of education, which becomes aimed at the development of specific values ​​and life-necessary knowledge and skills of students."

A: "The reform of general secondary education involves the modernization of the content of education, which should be based on competence-based and person-oriented approaches to learning. In addition, the most important thing is to focus on students' acquisition of the skills and abilities necessary for a modern person for successful self-realization in professional activity, personal life, and public activity."

Thirdly, it is necessary to honestly admit that in school (at least in high school and middle school) there is simply an imitation of learning, and to change it. Right now, the discussion of the reform of the senior school is starting, and I would very much like to see real changes in it that should be thought out, balanced, and well prepared. We all know very well that it is impossible to master the school curriculum from beginning to end, and even students who always get only excellent grades do not learn everything. That high school students focus on the subjects required for the National Multi-Subject Test, and the study of other subjects is simply simulated. This is why there are such battles over which subjects should be mandatory for testing. After all, even at the level of education management, they understand that students will learn what will be in the National Multi-Subject Test. But at the same time, the number of students who will receive medals is growing every, compared to 2019, it has increased by one and a half times.

Fourth, do not lower the level of the External independent evaluation (National multi-subject test). The school is oriented towards the External examination evaluation tests, and if the test tasks are easy or reproductive (read the textbook), then the school will also be oriented towards this. That is why the tests should contain open questions, tasks that require you to express your reasoning in writing and give your own conclusions. Thus, tasks should have a high pass-fail threshold. In addition, if in order to complete the tests, students only need to correctly put the crosses, such tests will not "notice" strong and talented children, because they simply will not have anything to demonstrate their talents. According to the results of an easy test, strong students can be on the same level as someone who did not care much about studying.

Of course, taking tests and preparing for them during war is difficult. And I sympathize from the bottom of my heart with the children who found themselves in such difficult circumstances during their growing up years. However, this does not mean that by our ostentatious "kindness", i.e., by making the tests easier, we should deprive them of their future.

Fifth, we should stop treating education as a privilege. Admission to universities should be based solely on the knowledge of students, if we really care about the quality of human capital. First, knowledge, and then admission to a higher educational institution. It is necessary to support the socially vulnerable, but not at the time of admission to universities, but before and after. Before entering a higher educational institution, those who do not have the appropriate level of knowledge should be given the opportunity to improve it in preparatory courses, while providing accommodation, food and a scholarship. After entering a higher educational institution, it is necessary to provide education at budget expense, provide a free dormitory, a high stipend, and a guaranteed first job. But this is a difficult and expensive path for the state, and moreover, it is unpopular, so the socially unprotected layer of society in our country cannot always get a quality and good education.

All the steps mentioned in the article are nothing new, because public and expert discussions have been going on around them for a long time. It cannot be said that educational leaders have never tried to take decisive action. But they often had to retreat under the pressure of populism. As soon as new effective solutions appeared in some law or regulation, the search for compromises began, namely, conversations and the search for ways to implement these reforms in such a way as not to put anyone in an unpleasant situation and for everyone to be comfortable. And after such compromising concessions, only a shell remained of the idea.

Once in the offices of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, I heard the phrase: "We are doomed to take popular steps." It's time to replace it with another one: "The time of popular steps has passed and the time of effective ones has come." It is obvious that in the field of education we need new effective solutions, and quick ones. War, crisis is a difficult period, but also a chance to jump forward, to achieve real changes. However, for this, those who manage the field of education must have not only a new strategy, but also courage, political will, readiness to take important but unpopular steps. We simply have no other way out.