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

10-19

Authors: Vincentas Lamanauskas, Laima Railienė

The aim of research is to ascertain, how Lithuanian comprehensive school students value Lithuanian education system, what its advantages and disadvantages they discern and what recommendations they present for its improvement. The research data were expressed in writing. The received answers of the respondents were coded. The most frequently recurring notional units were grouped until initial groups were found, called sub-categories. In the second stage the sub-categories were combined into categories. The qualitative research data were processed using content analysis, when essential characteristics are distinguished in the information base. The obtained verbal data base, referring to conventional content analysis methods, was analysed in three stages: • Multiple answer reading; • The search of semantically related answers and “key” words; • The interpretations of notional units. To guarantee the reliability of data analysis, the distinction of notional units and subsequent grouping was carried out independently by two researchers. The results of quantitative analysis were analysed and announced earlier (Lamanauskas, Railiene, 2010b). In recent years secondary education stage students feel a considerable amount of stress because of constant changes taking place in educational process. The essential education system advantages in respect of students are these: good preparation of students, acquisition of knowledge, good theoretical preparation, also good preparation for further education; free general education; a possibility to choose subjects according to demands and a wide choice of them. The choice of students’ individual learning plan in the 11th- 12th forms is determined by: intention to study and to acquire a desirable profession, hobbies, having been acquired by students up to 11th form, the desire to know more. Also, the students choose the subjects which they are good at, and reject those which are difficult for them. Students pay rather big attention to teachers’ qualification, learning atmosphere and to material basis available in comprehensive school. The essential disadvantages in respect of students are these: too big learning load and pace at school, students are overloaded with work, expensive education in general, especially higher education, very high fee for studies, poor practical preparation, too much attention for conveyance of information; annual changes, there is no stability, nobody knows what novelties are expecting next year, never-ending reforms. They are especially worried about reconstructions in higher schools as well. In students’ opinion, more attention at school should be paid to the development of students’ creativity. Also, a very important thing is the implementation of the newest technologies into the education process.

29-38

Authors: Violetta Khmel

The Republic of Belarus in series implements an elaborate model of socially oriented market economy. The analysis of the educational level of the Belarusian population revealed that the high rate of state development is provided by specialists with specialized secondary education. The analysis of teaching situation in specialized secondary schools in respect to accountants’ training allowed to discover contradictions in the formulated aims and planned results of vocational education. Although the Republic of Belarus has not joined the Bologna process yet, it does not reject the key approaches of European education used to ensure the organizational and pedagogical conditions of the teaching process. The competency-based approach to choosing of the contents of teaching is not only widely researched, but is being introduced into the educational standards of different specialties. But the system of competences of a graduate proving its competence remains sometimes ill-conceived. The system analysis of concepts of the competency-based approach in Pedagogics and Management let us formulate the essence of competences of a specialist working in the real economy. In this research the professional competence is determined as willingness and ability of specialists to implement their knowledge, skills and experience in the real conditions of professional activity. The peculiarities of forming of professional competence are reflected by the example of accountants’ training. In the context outlined above professional competence of an accountant can be defined as an integrative personality characteristic of a specialist formed on the basis of and in the process of learning theory as well as getting expertise in economics, finance and accounting, acquiring professional skills and experience. It reflects the readiness of a specialist to solve professional problems in the dynamics of their development. The analysis of the peculiarities of accountants’ work that are important in terms of innovative development of economy and the synthesis of theoretical approaches to the concept of professional competence allowed us to substantiate and formulate the methodology of determining the professional component of specialists’ competence. The essence of the methodology lies in the fact that during the development of the model of professional component of a specialist’s competence consisting of a system of competences, the following conditions should be taken into account: • Competencies pertaining to knowledge and skills which pass down from generation to generation, the ability to use them in professional activities as well as professional consciousness. These competences are generalized and systematized in the educational standard of the specialty; • Competencies that define the essence of the process and the results of professional activities described by Human Resource Management and dependant on the current state and development of the society. The proposed algorithm was tested among the students of the specialty 2-25 01 35 Accounting, analysis and control at the level of specialized secondary education in the Republic of Belarus.

8-38

Authors: Aušrinė Jarutienė, Vincentas Lamanauskas

Education quality questions become urgent for all educational institutions regardless of their type, the kind, size of provided services and so on. Thus, it is natural, that quality questions become more urgent for comprehensive schools as well. In the latter years, quite a lot of attention has been devoted to comprehensive school internal audit thematic. We can state, that internal audit is only a tiny sphere of quality management. Such type of examining of institution activity (internal state) in any case is only partial, insufficiently objective and so on. However, internal audit (IA) carried out in an appropriate way, without doubt, helps to improve school’s activity, if educational institution is interested in this itself. The results obtained during the research revealed that schools before presenting internal audit data on their website, both during the processing the received results and later on face difficulties. Also, there is, ob-viously, lack of concrete directions on how this process has to be carried out. It is obvious, that internal audit methodics are being applied not effectively, it is not clear what information presentation form has to be and what information should be announced in public. The research showed that the presented information content is not exhaustive, does not reflect school assessment process, schools tend not to show on their website at what level they evaluated their activity, usually only the weakest, the strongest and improvement requiring school activity sides are pointed out. This article presents research results which reveal comprehensive school internal audit information content aspects. Activity sphere evaluation based on concrete evaluation indicators: on average, both in the old IA methodics and in the updated IA methodics, activity spheres are evaluated 2.5, i.e, as an intermediate variant between 2nd and 3rd evaluation level: there are more strong features than shortcomings, however, the activity is adequate, but has to be improved. The highest quality having assessed school activity sphere in the old IA methodics – learning achie-vements – is evaluated at level 3, in the updated methodics – educability and learning and student support. Both in the old and in the updated IA methodics these activity spheres are evaluated equally (2,6) – school management, learning and education, student support, resources; (2,8) – school culture, achievements, ethos. The evaluation of advantages, disadvantages and activity spheres that need improvement: In both IA metodics the most frequently assessed activity sphere is related with the applicability of the education content to the learner. These spheres were the least evaluated: in the old IA methodics the fifth sphere – ethos, in the updated IA methodics – also the fifth activity sphere, however, it is related with the strategic management of the school. Gymnasiums, comparing the results of both IA methodics analyses, tend not to evaluate activity spheres, pointing out advantages, disadvantages and activity aspects requiring improvement in the way basic, secondary and special schools do. The old IA methodics was applied more in secondary schools; the updated IA is most frequently applied in basic and secondary schools.

50-59

Authors: Janis Gedrovics

Ergonomics as a science about a human or a group of humans in the process of work is gaining its im-portance in environments like schools. The reason for this is the importance of suitable working environment in ensuring any teacher as well as learners’ health, welfare and comfort, which guarantee good results in teaching/ learning process, as well as to train the future employee who share responsibility for his/ her working place and environment. In this situation a teacher who has been well prepared and educated is of greatest help to learners. Apart from that the teacher’s own example is of greatest importance. For the young teacher to acquire the necessary theoretical knowledge and practical skills, Riga Teacher Training and Educational Management Academy (RTTEMA) has introduced a special course - Ergonomics and school hygiene- in all teacher training curricula, and course “Pedagogical Ergonomics” for Master study program “School management”. The new courses are designed to introduce students of pedagogy with modern views on the designing and functioning of working environment in school, including the general issues of work safety and occupational health, with practical application of ergonomics in educational institutions in order to maintain health and working capabilities of both students and teachers as well as with the teacher’s duties and responsibilities in order to ensure work safety as a part of general safety in schools. We have to bear in mind that, unlike in classical cases, educational institutions have a specific contingent: on the one hand there are employees (teachers, administration, technical personnel) and on the other hand – students. For each group there are different normative documents regulating their working life which provides for the special position of ergonomics in educational institution in the context of school hygiene and valeology (science of healthy lifestyle). Besides, the great age difference between teachers and learners, makes school community a unique group from the point of view of ergonomics frequently taking totally opposite approaches to various issues including views on work and working environment and having specific, often objectively well grounded, demands regarding this environment. Among the factors most strongly affecting learners’ health we should mention unsuitable furniture and heavy school-bags, and some organisational problems. But every pupil, just as every teacher has the right to learn and work in ergonomically well organized environment. It requires that every teacher and every head of educational institution, as well as their learners would have up-to-date ergonomic literacy of the modern working environment.

10-20

Authors: Aušrinė Jarutienė, Vincentas Lamanauskas

In recent years, a lot of attention has been paid to internal audit problems in comprehensive schools. Seeking to analyze information about internal audits carried out in comprehensive schools, the information, which has been analyzed, is presented on websites. Results obtained during the research showed that schools encounter difficulties before presenting Internal audit data on website as well as while processing the obtained data and apparently, there is a lack of concrete directions about how this process has to be carried out. It is obvious, that Internal audit methods are applied ineffectively, it is not clear how information has to be presented and what information should be announced in public. The research showed that the content of presented information is not exhaus-tive, does not represent school evaluation process, schools do not tend to show on websites at what level they evaluated their activities, most frequently only the weakest, strongest points or areas re-quiring improvement are pointed out. This article presents research results, which reveal comprehensive school Internal audit in-formation on websites presentation nuances. After carrying out the research, we can assert that: • There is no common system in comprehensive schools of how to present information on school website about internal audit, access to direct information requires additional time and efforts. • The dominating data presentation form is text. This form is most frequently used by town basic and comprehensive schools. Town gymnasiums use more advanced forms for disclosing internal audit information (slides, tables, charts). • Only one out of 100 comprehensive schools presented information on performed internal audit, which corresponds to Internal audit methods of recommendatory type of information presentation about carried out Internal audit report. • Internal audit methodics in comprehensive school is not treated as important, seeking to inform the consumer about the quality of school activities, because 99% of information can be evaluated as not sufficiently exhaustive or not exhaustive. School location does not have influence on information quality. • 84 schools did not point out which year Internal Audit methodics they were using, the con-sumer has to analyze the presented information himself. • 67 schools did not indicate which year the audit was carried out, therefore analyzed meth-ods presented to the consumer can be interpreted differently as current year indicators, as previous year ones and so on, it becomes complicated to judge about the quality of school, information in itself loses actuality and seizes being informative. • Out of 100 schools, which carried out Internal Audit processes, only 12 schools were pre-sented with activity assessment results. Information dissemination in schools connected with Inter-nal Audit results is not treated as a very important source for disclosing the quality of school activi-ties. • Schools before presenting Internal Audit data on website face difficulties while processing the obtained data and apparently, there is a lack of concrete directions about how this process has to be carried out, the way information has to be presented and what data have to be pointed out seeking to reveal the school quality.

31-41

Authors: Natallia Belavusava

The main mechanism that guarantees the quality of education in Republic of Belarus is based on the state educational standards. According to the current standards, the aim of professional training is to obtain an integrated result: expert (professional) skills coupled with solid general education. This education is build upon the development of a common system of competences. Therefore, the quality of professional education is strongly connected with the problem of the specialist (who has to possess all necessary skills and competencies) formation method. The problem includes development and advancing of the system of competences in the conditions of the current educational process and elaboration of an evaluation methodology and techniques for this system. Taking into account, that the educational process of high school professional training in Belarus includes the studying of four cycles of disciplines (socially-humanitarian, natural-science, general professional and special professional), it is essential to investigate the influence of each of the cycles on the final system of competences formation. In the present article, the capability of the natural-science disciplines cycle for the handling of the professional system of competences development is discussed in reference to military specialties. It has been found that during the professional disciplines studying, the replacement (but not integration) of the knowledge received at the previous stage of the natural-science cycle is taking place. It interferes with principal understanding of natural sciences as a fundamental basis for the professional competence; it does not promote the recognition of cultural and social importance of natural sciences; and, consequently, it does not support the formation of general orientation on continuous self-education in the field of natural sciences. And that is considering that insufficiency of natural-science culture of graduates of military high schools can lead to possible serious economic consequences for the country and risks in the field of national safety. In the course of the experiment, the didactic conditions have been formulated and the model of the ped-agogical process, directed to the elaboration of a persistent natural-science system of competences, has been developed and approved. The incorporation of the conditions and the process does not assume an essential transformation of the volume and structure of class hours allocated to the studying of natural-science disciplines. Introduction of the course "Fundamentals of modern natural sciences » in syllabus of the internal security troops department of military academy of Belarus is essentially new. The technique of examination of the integrative abilities of students with use of the methods of fuzzy mathematics was applied for the evaluation of the developed model efficiency. The interest to this method is caused by the possibility use this approach to deal with estimations of competences, which cannot be unequiv-ocally structured in an algorithm presentation by definition.

50-52

Authors: Vincentas Lamanauskas

A short communication (interview) with associate professor Eleonora Melnik from Karelian State Pedagogical University. The topic of discussion - some trends of education development in Russia.