Kyrgyzstan returns to PISA — Programme for International Student Assessment. Oleg Bondarenko, head of the Association of Publishers and Book Distributors, told 24.kg news agency.
PISA is a test that assesses the functional literacy of schoolchildren in different countries of the world and the ability to apply knowledge in practice. It has been held every three years since the 2000s. Teenagers at the age of 15 are tested. They are selected by age, and not by their learning in a particular class, since school systems differ from state to state.
As Oleg Bondarenko notes, the PISA study is a monitoring one, it allows to identify and compare the changes taking place in education systems in different countries, and evaluate the effectiveness of strategic decisions in the field of education.
Monitoring of the quality of education at PISA is carried out in four main areas: reading literacy, mathematical literacy, science literacy and computer literacy.
According to the results of PISA in 2000-2015, the best secondary education is in the states of East Asia: China, Korea, Singapore, Japan. As for Europe, Finland, Estonia, Switzerland, Poland and the Netherlands are in the top 10.
Kyrgyzstan took part in the assessment of the educational achievements of 15-year-old students in 2006 and 2009. The results were disappointing: Kyrgyz students took the last place out of 60 countries that participated in the PISA test.
«At that time it caused resentment and misunderstanding of the officials of the republic’s education system, there were opinions that the test was not organized correctly. As a result, in the future, Kyrgyzstan no longer participated in the international tests. It became known now that Kyrgyzstan will again participate in the PISA programme,» he told.
According to him, however, a lot of preparation of the entire educational system of the country is needed. Government agencies are directly involved in the programme. It is required to have appropriately trained personnel, educational and methodological literature issued according to certain educational standards. That is, we are talking about a training system.
«In this system, initiative from below is also important, we need the ability and understanding of the goals and objectives on the part of teachers, school administrations, those organizations that are involved in the educational process. By joint efforts, with the correct formulation of the question, we will be able to avoid the mistakes that led to the disastrous results for us in 2006-2009. It is expected that through the joint efforts of all organizations of the domestic educational system, Kyrgyzstan will again be able to take part in the PISA test in 2024. The preparation stage is underway,» Oleg Bondarenko noted.
He added that some organizations are already coming out with initiatives for a broad discussion of approaches to the training of schoolchildren.
As part of the training process, a complex of informational and methodological seminars for school teachers will be held online (ZOOM conferences) for the first time in the republic.
Its theme is «Resources for new national teaching materials to prepare students for the international PISA programme.»
Seminars are held in preparation for the start of the new academic year and the August methodological meetings of teachers. All interested teachers are invited, participation is free.
Seminars will be held from August 17 to August 27. Subjects: Homeland Studies, Chemistry, Geometry, Russian and English, and others.
«Prepared speakers from Kyrgyzstan and Russia (Moscow) will tell how to teach students to cope with assigned tasks, how to form competence. To take part in online seminars, it is enough to contact the publishing house of educational literature Arkus (Bishkek) — the organizer of a series of events, links are posted on the website and on social media accounts,» Oleg Bondarenko told.
