Schools Put to the Test
Pupils in their penultimate year of school are being tested under an international assessment scheme in which Kyrgyzstan fared badly last time round.
Schools Put to the Test
Pupils in their penultimate year of school are being tested under an international assessment scheme in which Kyrgyzstan fared badly last time round.
A selection of schools will conduct the tests starting from April 6, under the Programme for International Student Assessment – known as PISA for short – which is run by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD. The scheme is designed to test pupils nearing the end of their schooling, which in Kyrgyzstan's case means those in grade nine of the ten-year system.
Last time the PISA tests were done, in 2006, Kyrgyzstan came last among the 57 countries that took part. Those tests were only for mathematics, whereas this time the focus is on reading skills and logical thinking.
“Students have stopped reading books,” said one teacher at a Bishkek school, “so we try to develop their faculty for independent thinking in the classroom.”
However, educational experts argue that Kyrgyzstan falls down when it comes to teaching logical thinking.
Meerim Kadyrova of the Centre for Education and Teaching Methods Assessment says very few teachers encourage pupils to think for themselves and to fully digest information they read. Teachers see their role as simply to impart information.
Last time the PISA tests were done, in 2006, Kyrgyzstan came last among the 57 countries that took part. Those tests were only for mathematics, whereas this time the focus is on reading skills and logical thinking.
“Students have stopped reading books,” said one teacher at a Bishkek school, “so we try to develop their faculty for independent thinking in the classroom.”
However, educational experts argue that Kyrgyzstan falls down when it comes to teaching logical thinking.
Meerim Kadyrova of the Centre for Education and Teaching Methods Assessment says very few teachers encourage pupils to think for themselves and to fully digest information they read. Teachers see their role as simply to impart information.
