The Minister of Education, Sports and Youth informed the Parliament's Education Committee on Wednesday about the legislative proposal regarding the abolition of stagnation due to achievement in high schools, in the context of the debate on the amendment of the Regulations concerning the operation of Public Secondary Schools , Prodromos Prodromou.
In his statements after the end of the Committee session, Mr. Prodromou said that the legislative proposal filed by the Ministry of Education regarding the repeal was discussed today in a first meeting the stagnation due to performance in high schools and the adoption of a better orientation of students in the different specializations of the high school cycle.
As he mentioned, in recent years a structured and more reliable student evaluation system has been introduced in Secondary Education schools.
He noted that the evaluation procedures will be completed with the proposal for the evaluation of the Educational Project and the Evaluation of the of Education which has been completed and the relevant bills have been submitted to the Legal Service for processing.
In the context of these processes of a global reliable evaluation, Mr. Prodromou continued, data and elements resulting from the three years of implementation of the new evaluation system in the high school cycle are already being used. the need for some improvement measures. A first measure is that of abolishing stagnation due to performance, while other measures regarding the better orientation and distribution of students in the various High School Departments and in the Technical Schools should follow, with the aim of achieving as much as possible more beneficial education of the children”, he added.
The Minister of Education said that it is proposed to abolish stagnation due to achievement in high school because any educational benefit seems, from the available data, to be almost negligible, while the process of stagnation creates great psychological pressure and anxiety, and sometimes even tendencies to drop out of school to a small number of children.
Furthermore, he noted, that this proposal takes into account that schooling until the age of 15 is compulsory.
At the same time, said Mr. Prodromou, it is taken into account that this arrangement for stagnation due to achievement concerns a very small number of students.
“Indicatively, it is stated that during the last three years that it was implemented (before the pandemic) it concerned a percentage of the order of 0.5% of students. Whereas, all the administrative costs as well as the loss of teaching time for all high schools due to the relevant procedures, which amounts to at least ten working days or a period of about two weeks, are disproportionate”, he added.
He noted that by adopting this change, the time that will be gained can be used for better adaptation and more comfortable conduct of the school's work within the given time series of the year, for repetitions, but also for the allocation of time for the conduct of Skills Workshops designed by the Ministry.
Specifically, Mr. Prodromou said, in the context of these workshops, the skills of the 21st century will be cultivated more systematically, which are also foreseen by the plans at the level of the European strategy for 2030.
“It will also be possible to include a a series of thematic units for which there is always a unanimous opinion that they are necessary, but as a rule there is not enough time available, such as Digital Skills, Environmental Education, Financial Literacy, Sexuality Education, Road Safety, etc. ok”, he completed
Mr. Prodromou said that the proposal is complemented by a provision according to which in order for the students to follow the corresponding Group of Orientation Courses in the 1st Lyceum, it will be assumed that they have the basic necessary knowledge in the respective specialization courses (score 10/20).
In this way, he noted, the phenomenon observed of some students not being able to attend the courses in the Group and later the Direction they choose will be avoided.
“In this way the students will be oriented to the school program in a way that corresponds beneficially to their knowledge and performance”, he said.
He also said that with the implementation of the proposal they will be listed in indicative and high school diploma the corresponding real scores and in this way there will still be a motivation for performance and improvement, since students will not wish to have a Diploma with a score lower than the “base”.
“The legislative proposal establishes the abolition of stagnation due to achievement, where there does not appear to be much pedagogical benefit from repeating the same class, but the same does not apply to stagnation due to absences. Because stagnation results from such a large degree of absences that in essence means that the student has essentially not attended the lessons and therefore it is not a repetition of the class, but essentially a first year of study,” he noted.
Mr. Prodromou said that they hope that subsequently and through the examination by the Parliamentary Committee these amendments will be approved which will contribute to the better organization of lessons and the operation of the schools, as well as to the better school career of the students.
“This proposal should then be supplemented by other plans that are already being made in the Ministry for the better organization of study programs in the high school cycle, based on the conclusions drawn from the new evaluation system in force. While the overall evaluation framework in education will be completed with the bills for the evaluation of the Educational Project and Teachers that have been completed and can be submitted to the Parliament after the presidential elections”, he added.
< p>The Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Education and Culture, DIKO Member of Parliament, Chrysanthos Savvidis, said in his statements that the issue of stagnation has not been exhausted. “We are not negative. We are waiting for more explanations on the specific issue so that we can in due course decide and rule on the specific proposal of the Ministry of Education”, he added.
DISY Member of Parliament, Giorgos Karoullas, in his statements said that with this new reform “we aim to abolish the stagnation in the high school cycle, something which firstly saves teaching time, secondly extends the school year for the teaching of all subjects, reduces the administrative running costs and makes the student responsible, gives him a sense of responsibility to achieve the highest possible grade based on his own capabilities”.
“With this innovation, remedial teaching is simultaneously strengthened and a new innovation is also introduced for the development of skills with the application of the skills workshop” a necessity, as he said, of modern society. “The DISY and the Government of Nikos Anastasiadis aim until the last moment of governance for continuous reforms in order to lead Cyprus to Tomorrow with Averof Neophytou continuing this creative course”, he added.
The MP added. of AKEL Christos Christofidis, in his statements he said that once again, the Ministry of Education is bringing another change to our education system, individually.
“It is the history of ten years that repeats itself. No overall plan, no strategy. We said goodbye to the Minister today, because it was his last appearance at the Education Committee and I have to say the following: It is really with soul pain that we have to conclude that this Government, in the field of education, has failed”, he added.
It has failed, Mr. Christofidis continued, because there has never been an overall, progressive, democratic plan for the education of the country.
“They operated with the logic of 'seeing and doing', based on an ideological obsession with neoliberalism simply to get measurable results. What is happening in our schools in the last few days with the exams of the four months, is the proof of this colossal failure in the field of education”, he added. said that this is a proposal that the Democratic Party – Partnership agrees with, because it will save both educational time and relieve even the 0.5% of children who are stagnant due to achievement from the terrible stress and anxiety about the issue of achievement them.
“The stagnation due to absences remains, so the only condition for the repeal to take effect concerns the student's score that remains at 10 out of 20 and the core subjects of the branch that follow. In addition , we argued that these children who, due to their performance, will pass to high school should definitely be supported both psychologically and educationally”, he concluded.
