Results from Lithuanian exam are worse than they used to be, but still better than expected.

This year 23 227 students in total took their final high school exams (matura exams), including 21 803 students from Lithuanian schools and 1 423 from minorities’’ schools.

In schools with Lithuanian as the teaching language the percentage was 90.19% of students, whereas in minorities’ schools it was 88.83%.

In the past year, the percentage of positive results was 91.94% and a year earlier it was 90.93%.

It cannot be excluded that the indicator shows the results of the introduction of a unified Lithuanian examination for minorities’’ schools and schools that have Lithuanian as the teaching language. Two years ago the decision to unify the exam was taken and students in minorities’ schools were continuing their education along with a new, unified programme. The difference in the amount of classes in relation to the previous teaching programme was over 800 hours.

Students of Polish schools as well as their parents and Lithuanian activists were trying to convince the authorities that it is impossible to compensate for such a difference in 2 years. Despite the protests, the decision was taken, so it cannot be excluded that the situation has had a direct influence on the fact that national Lithuanian language examination results have been getting worse for the past two years.

The stress associated with constant political battle related to the unified exam was not helping in the process of preparing the students of minorities’ schools for taking the test. Although there is no detailed analysis of the results yet, the initial one says that students of Polish schools wrote the exam worse than their predecessors.

—It is difficult to say what the cause of worse results was: was it the change itself or the stress associated with it? What is surprising is the fact that our students who were not the worst ones did not pass the exam. — says Irena Wolska, the headmaster of the J. Śniadecki Junior High School in Šalčininkai. Although in this school only 3 out of 27 students who took the exam did not pass is, it is not a pleasant situation for the students and teachers of the school. However, the headmaster has admitted that because of the recent mess connected with the unification of the exam, everyone was expecting the results to be much worse.

Students of the Junior High School in Šalčininkai who did not manage to pass the national exam had the chance to take a school exam, just as all remaining students who failed the Lithuanian exam. Passing this one means obtaining a high school diploma.

The headmaster of the Šalčininkai School informed us that the tree students will surely appeal from the result of the exam and they will request their works to be checked again.

—We cannot exclude the possibility that the people who were checking the exams treated our students in a bit different way – believes the headmaster.

In the end, the grade resulting from the appellation will be placed on the diplomas. If the appellation is rejected, then it will be the mark from the school exam.

Students of the Jean Paul II Junior High School in Vilnius also wrote the exam a bit worse than usually. The headmaster of the institution, Adam Błaszkiewicz, said that we need more time and a detailed analysis to judge the causes of such a situation.

However, not all schools are sad because of the Lithuanian language exam results.

As Jadvyga Pumpulavičienė, the vice-headmaster of the Rafał Kalinowski mixed High School in Nemėžis (the Vilnius Region) has informed us, all students of Lithuanian classes did well during the national exam. Meanwhile, students of Polish classes chose to write the school exam only, and they also did it well.

In turn, the Minister of Education and Schooling Dainius Pavalkis believes that it was a good idea to unify the exam, since the general results have improved.

—The results of the first unified Lithuanian language and literature examination showed that all students, irrespectively of the teaching language, came for the exam prepared and hoping to have results that should be better than it was expected. I am sure that we have chosen the right strategy when we decided to unify the exam and we will stick to it — said Minister Pavalkis. He also added that within the next few months experts will analyse results of the examination and they will present their conclusions related to the future of the unified exam.

In total, 23 227 students took their final high school exams. 21 803 of them were students of Lithuanian schools and 1 423 of them from national minorities’ educational institutions.

Source: http://kurierwilenski.lt/2013/07/03/wyniki-z-litewskiego-gorsze-ale-lepsze-niz-oczekiwano/

Tłumaczenie by Emilia Zawieracz w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu. Translated by Emilia Zawieracz within the framework of a traineeship programme of the European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu.