Czech education in decline, says OECD

The quality of Czech secondary education is falling faster than in any other OECD country, according to a new study, and some education experts doubt the Education Ministry is taking the right steps to stop the freefall.

On Dec. 7, results of the latest Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) were released. The survey examines math, science and reading knowledge of 15-year-olds in 65 countries. It is conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an international economic organization that promotes free markets and democracy.

The latest survey found Czech students declined in all categories, finishing at average in math and science but below average for reading.

"The worst-case scenario would look like this: The year is 2025, and students who were 15 years old in 2010 are now taking over management of the state and the economy," said Martin Mudra, a teacher at Gymnázium Jiřího Gutha-Jarkovského in Prague 1. "What they need, they will find on Wikipedia, and all their text will be corrected by their word processors...Will they be able to properly read and write?"

At the same time, the gap between the level of education of students at rich and poor schools has continued to grow.

"The deterioration in testing results for Czech students is a long-term trend," said Jana Palečková, national manager for the survey and a member of the Institute for Information on Education in Prague.

The survey found that 23 percent of tested students do not have adequate reading skills, while more than one-fifth of students have insufficient math skills, she said.

"PISA focuses on identifying the skills that these pupils will need in real life, whether it's in further study or to achieve success in the labor market...These students may have problems in what they pursue next," Palečková added.

The declines are part of a 10-year tumble documented by the triennial study, which education officials and experts blame on the lack of a comprehensive and consistent approach to education, including continued low pay for teachers and the plummeting levels of interest among students. Education Ministry officials and some independent experts differ, however, on how to fix the problems.

Education Minister Josef Dobeš has made reducing the number of schools the keystone of his agenda, arguing that badly performing schools should close, pushing students into better-run programs. In early October, a test run of graduation exams that become mandatory in spring 2011 for all students leaving secondary school created an uproar when one-third of students failed the "easier" version of the exam.

Meanwhile, the government is instituting widespread austerity measures, which some fear could continue to hamper quality public education. Education Ministry spokesman Václav Koukolíček counters that teachers' pay next year will actually rise by more than 2 billion Kč and then 4 billion Kč more in 2012, though support staff in schools will be hit with an across-the-board 10 percent pay cut.

"It's necessary for the teacher to follow the progress and care for every single child, and they do not have sufficient help," said Jana Straková, an education specialist who is on the PISA governing board. "Society should decide education is important, and that it should invest in education and in the staff."

The new graduation exam does not address the empty curricular reforms initiated in 2004, educators said. Those changes made each school responsible for creating a School Educational Program (ŠVP) in step with ministry-mandated guidelines in an attempt to generate some sort of common national curriculum. Educators said the changes instead burdened them with red tape, and that disparities between secondary schools remain unsolved as frequent changes at the head of the Education Ministry made any longer-term reforms nearly impossible.

"Teachers should be educated in broader fields so they can teach more classes, but they are currently too busy with bureaucratic stuff like the new leaving exams and curricula," said Pavel Drtina, director of the Evropská gymnázium high school in Prague 6, though he added it was too soon to draw conclusions on the overall success of reforms.

"[The survey results] should lead to a contemplation of what has been done wrong, like overloading teachers," Drtina said.

The problem lies in the actual structure of the secondary-school system, which is made up of three different tracks that don't share any basic core elements, educators said. This results in widely divergent levels of knowledge and the continued gap in achievement between schools of different socioeconomic levels.

At present, following primary school, students choose between střední odborné učiliště, for students going into a trade like carpentry; střední odborná škola (SOŠ), for students going into a profession like accounting or social work; and gymnázium, for students going on to university or college. Students take tests to gain admission into SOŠ and gymnázium. Such decisions can be made about students as early as age 11. 

"If you decide an exam at the end of secondary school should be the same for everyone, then you should define the common core that will be the same for all these different tracks," Straková said. "But we didn't do anything like that...We just sort of hope students know what is going to be tested...It's based on this assumption that students and teachers are lazy and that if there is this examination, they will work harder and success will happen automatically."

Koukolíček countered that the exam would give educators an idea of what their students should know, and then build a curriculum to fit. He also said the ministry plans to consolidate the 17 offices that now regulate and monitor education into three in order to reduce bureaucratic hassle, and that the ministry would introduce an "ideal" curriculum next year.

"They can have their own curriculum, but schools will know that if there's something wrong, they can go on their own or they can go according to the curriculum created by the ministry," Koukoliček said.

But the testing and the curricula standards now in place emphasize the wrong kind of learning, educators said. 

"Children are not taught critical thinking, and they cannot analyze a text or even formulate their own opinions on certain topics," said Mudra, the Prague 1 teacher. "Our schools still test only knowledge that is mechanically transferred, but not ability."

There are concerns that, even if school reforms take a positive turn soon, long-term damage has already been done.

"It's a very bad situation for the education of future teachers at universities...Teaching is not a prestigious job in terms of financial gain or career advancement, or even in terms of social status," Mudra said.

- Klára Jiřičná contributed to this report.

Cat Contiguglia can be reached at
ccontiguglia@praguepost.com