Compulsory secondary education in Ukraine

A The most critical of them is inconsistence between the educational legislation and the actual regulatory base as to implementation of the external independent assessment system in Ukraine.

B Knowledge assessment in the testing format was aimed at revealing the real knowledge level of school-leavers and ensuring equal and fair access to studying at higher educational establishments.

C Another problem that caused an ambiguous reaction in society is implementation of the external independent assessment in Ukraine as an element of the public educational policy.

D Fortunately, it did not influence the results but it should be avoided in future.

E Different views on this matter exist in society, which caused relevant reaction of various political forces in the course of the presidential election campaign in 2010.

F Positive changes in the Ukrainian community require systematic reformation of the national system of education.

Among the pressing problems facing the general secondary education system development is the transition to a 12-year term of getting a general secondary education. Today, the amount of study load per pupil in Ukrainian schools is about 10,300 academic hours, which on the whole meets the average European educational standards. (1) _____. For instance, a draft Law of Ukraine on amending several laws of Ukraine as to returning to the 10-year term of acquiring complete general secondary education was submitted by one of the candidates for the Office of the President of Ukraine at the presidential election in 2010. It aroused a strong protest of the Board of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine that unanimously passed an appeal to the Supreme Rada of Ukraine as to impossibility of returning to the 10-year study term in secondary education, as it was at the time of the USSR, for the following reasons:

• The twelve-year study term has preserved children’s health, standardized the study load, enabled implementation of a five-day study week while the ten-year study term will provide for returning to a six-day study week which endangers pupil’s health;

• Over 100,000 teachers will automatically become unemployed;

• The international community will not recognize school leaving certificates or higher education diplomas as it violates the UNESCO recommendations on the minimum 12-year term for acquiring secondary education;

• 1.5 billion hryvnias has been spent on textbooks. Replacing them will require even more taxpayers’ money;

• Profile training in high school will be cancelled. It will be extremely difficult for pupils to enter higher educational establishments.

(2) _______. The main instrument of this process is testing techniques usage. Testing to assess knowledge was first applied in Ukraine in late 20s – early 30s of the XX century to solve a number of pedagogical problems. Testing was used again in 50s, 70s, and 90s, but no expected results were obtained because testing methodology was not developed enough. External independent assessment by means of testing was applied in Ukraine again as an experiment in 2002 on the basis of pupils’ voluntary participation in Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa and Kharkiv regions with the financial and expert support by the International Renaissance Foundation. Today, the Ukrainian educators develop their own model of carrying out assessment of school-leavers’ study achievements.

In 2008 mass external assessment of pupils’ study achievements using a new procedure developed by the Ukrainian Center for Education Quality Assessment was carried out for the first time in Ukraine. (3) ______. At the same time, the practice of external independent assessment that is consecutively forming in Ukraine has defects as regards to both its content and organization and needs systematical improvement. Analyzing its implementation, attention should be paid to some fundamental deficiencies in this work. (4) ______. To standardize this issue, it is necessary to urgently make amendments to the Law of Ukraine on Education, Law of Ukraine on Higher Education, Law of Ukraine on General Secondary Education, etc. It is also inadmissible that, as opposed to developed world countries, professionals who are engaged today in the Ukrainian education assessment processes are not certified. The problem is that the higher educational establishments in Ukraine do not, till now, prepare specialists in the field of pedagogical measurement. At the same time, the increase in number of people involved in carrying out the external independent assessment (people responsible for testing facilities, instructors, and other participants of the process) and their lack of adequate experience led to violations of the procedure for carrying out external independent assessment. (5) _____. Therefore, it is necessary to review the practice of training and certifying persons involved in carrying out external independent assessment.

An important constituent of successful external independent assessment is marking the test participants’ scripts. First of all, it concerns marking open questions. This was a problem in 2007 and has remained as such till now because no mechanism has been elaborated for examiners’ involvement and payment for their work yet.

Much is written today about equal access to quality education. A constituent part of this process is to ensure equal conditions for all school leavers when carrying out external independent assessment, namely in observing the citizens’ constitutional right to choose their education language. This problem also remains unsettled due to its political context.

48. a) Listen to the speaker talking about educational problems in the USA and answer the questions by choosing TWO letters A-F.

1) Which two of the following problems are causing concern to educational authorities in the USA?

A difference between rich and poor students

B high numbers dropping out of education

C falling standards of students

D poor results compared with other nationalities

E low scores of overseas students

F differences between rural and urban students

2) According to the speaker, what are two advantages of reducing class sizes?

A more employment for teachers

B improvement in general health of the population

C reduction in number of days taken off sick by teachers

D better use of existing buildings and resources

E better level of education of workforce

F availability of better qualified teachers

b) Listen again and complete the table below by writing no more than THREE words and / or a number for each answer.

USA research projects into class sizes

State	Schools involved	Number of students participating	Key findings	Problems
Tennessee	about 70 schools	in total (1) ____	significant benefit especially for (2) ____ pupils	lack of agreement on implications of data
California	(3) ____	1.8 million	very little benefit	shortage of (4) ____, especially in poorer areas; no proper method for (5) ____ of project
Wisconsin	14 schools with pupils from (6) ___ families		similar results to Tennessee project

49. In pairs discuss the following questions. Use the Essential Strategy Language.

1) Should the number of pupils per teacher be reduced?What are your viewpoints on this issue? What are the other ways of improving educational systems?

2) What are your viewpoints on the recent changes in the educational system of Ukraine?

3) If you were secretary of state for education for one day what two changes would you make to the educational system of Ukraine to improve it?

4) What problems do you see in British educational system?

5) How could these problems be solved?

WRITING. The essay suggesting solutions to the educational problems. 50. Study the essay format. In pairs discuss how you can organize this type of essay.

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