Švietimas: politika, vadyba, kokybė /Education Policy, Management and Quality

4-7

Authors: Vincentas Lamanauskas

Recently the issues of quality management are becoming urgent in Lithuania. They are discussed and aspiration greatly improve the quality of activity in institutions of education are declared. But in the sphere of education the tendency to speak more than really work still remains. Many education organizations define quality as the major priority of their activity. But to declare or define is one thing and seek for that quality is another thing. The application of ISO standards in institutions of education still remains problematic. It is often tried to create own distinctive standards while ISO standards are acknowledged and applied on an international scale. It is understandable that institutions of education are specific and they rather differ from, let`s say, business organizations. Nevertheless, international ISO standards can and must be applied. Considering the process approach which is fixed in the ISO standards, every organization should effectively manage all occurring processes. Everything what happens in the processes later reflects in production or service in one way or another. According to this approach, the management of processes is rather complicated in organizations of education. The management of such processes, if it exists at all, is divided and fragmental. The application of statistical methods analyzing quality management issues in organizations of education is also problematic. It is undoubtedly that implement of quality management systems in organizations of education is especially urgent because it is a grave tool to basically improve the activity in all organizations of education.

18-25

Authors: Lina Vaškelienė, Antanina Grabauskienė

With reference to educational documents and articles of scholars and teachers-practitioners, this article analyzes the tendencies and problems of the alternation of the assessment of pupils’ achievements and progress in primary school in the plane of education reform; the aim is also to reveal the input of Lithuanian scholars and teachers-practitioners on purpose of creating a new system of assessment. The analysis of the stages of education reform demonstrated that all stages emphasize the necessity to democratize pupils’ assessment system with a gradual transition towards idiographic assessment and a refusal to assess primary school children with marks. In response to the requirements of the education reform, in 1998–2004 the scholars gave most attention to a theoretical grounding of the assessment of pupils’ progress. In the third stage of Lithuanian education reform (2003–2008) methodical articles prevail which offer various versions of assessment, achievement books, whereas the attention of the scholars towards the system of assessment is decreasing. With reference to this, we make an assumption that the removal of scholars in the third stage of the reform was the main reason for teachers and students to be unsatisfied with the modern system of assessment.

34-41

Authors: Valiantsina Dynich

In article ways of maintenance of quality of higher education in Belarus are considered. It is shown that they are the result of interaction of two tendencies. The first is inheritance and development of traditions of the Soviet education system. Belarus system tries to conserve fundamentality and scientific character of the contents of education, to keep in basis the orientation on Five years' term of training. The second one is use the consequences of world processes, such as mass character of higher education, its practical orientation, Influence of market relations on education, etc. All establishments of education of an education system of Belarus are subjected to the state control. Irrespective of subordination and patterns of ownership of establishments of education the state control is carried out as: – Self-checking which is carried out by establishments as the procedure which is carried out for an internal estimation of quality of education under the program worked out by establishment education or as a necessary stage of the certification which are carried out in the order, developed by department of quality assurance of education; – Inspections of establishments spent by department of quality assurance of education and other competent bodies; – Inspections by department of quality assurance of education of committees, departments of edu-cation of local executive and administrative bodies. Monitoring of quality of education at a level of universities is carried out in the form of the current and final certification of students for the certain period of training (a semester, a rate, all period of training). Oral, written and practical forms are used. Forms of certification of students are determined by educational standards of specialities. For the first time standards of specialties of higher education in republic have been developed in 1998-1999. In 2008 standards of new generation (361 specialities) have been created. In standards results of modernization of system of the higher school are reflected: two-level preparation of the graduate (the specialist, the master); the differentiated terms of preparation of the graduate at the first level (from 4 till 6 years of training on a speciality); competent approach to formation of model of the specialist; increasing of controlled independent work of students in total amount training hours; orientation to innovative techniques and technologies of teaching. The problem which is necessary to solve is to update of the training courses content from scientific and practical point of view. It is difficult because this step may lead to including more information that student is able to get. In this case it is important to emphasize that methodology of education is opposite to methodology of development of knowledge in science. In a science, as it is known, speaking computer language, change of operational system occurs from time to time. It allows to state information of past periods simply and briefly. There is reconsideration and re-structuring of all volume of the scientific information from the point of view of a new scientific paradigm. Changes of scientific knowledge in the content of training courses also should be nonlinear both on time and on intensity of the response to changes occurring in a science. During normal (extensive) de-velopment of a science the new knowledge can quite take root into educational process in an additive mode. Introduction of the knowledge which has arisen during change of a scientific paradigm demands radical transformation of forms and methods of training and even phase transition of all education system. Differently, the content and methodology of education, following by the changes in a science and practice, should vary periodically to provide quality of preparation of specialists according to modern social and culture realities.