Vingelienė: Alleviations could not influence exam results

It needs to be checked in details, but at face value we see that number of students taking exam has changed. Students who do not pass the exam are most often ones who got less than 6 as their grade at the end of semester. This year’s students number who were taking state exam and have grades 2-6 in the first semester was higher by 10% than in last year in polish schools and higher by 4% in russian schools. In general when it comes to national minority schools it gives 7% who made a difference in exam results of this and previous year’ – says Saulė Vingelienė, director of National Examination Center. Big concern has been risen by matura exam on lithuanian language. They are much worse than in previous year. In national minority schools was a drop from 87.87% to 80.74%.

Another tendency noticed by National Examination Center is that during school year students get higher grades on lithuanian language an literature than their peers from lithuanian schools.

‘Average student from lithuanian school who gets 40 points from state exam, usually has grade 5 in the first semester. But students from polish and russian schools who get 40 points, usually has grade 6,7 and evern 8’ says Vingelienė.

‘We will also analyze what influence would tightening up criteria have on exam results of students from national minorities. When comparing situation in 2013 to current year, it is clear that bad exam results are not result of only reducing alleviations’ – highlights director of examination center.

‘Students had 239 more lessons on lithuanian language this year than in 2013. It is additional year and three months of lithuanian language studies. Changes in allowed mistakes were minimal. The amount of allowed lexical and grammar mistakes stays the same. This year students could make 2 less stylistic, punctuation and logic mistakes than in previous years. Last amendments were made considering last year’s results. This standards should be similar, as it is planed to standardize exam requirements in 2020’ – says Vingelienė.

‘Nobody can change number of allowed mistakes just like that. There are analyses being made and changes are taking place because of exam results’ – he adds.

According to Vingelienė often students from national minority schools do better job when it comes to text exercises or punctuation than students from lithuanian schools. However we should concentrate on teaching grammar and orthography.

‘Ministry of Education is thinking how to improve standardizing teaching programs. Teachers might need to attend courses raising their qualifications’ – said National Examination Center Director