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

1-2

Authors: Editorial Board

Cover page, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2021, SPVK

4-9

Authors: Nadia Venskuvienė

The need to update the curriculum and the Curriculum framework of general education has been discussed for several years, as long as a year ago, the renewal work of primary and basic education curriculum began, and this year the renewal of the secondary and preschool education curriculum started. The curriculum of the general preschool education is described for one year, with the possibility for the child to study for the second year. The preschool education programme is not structured in separate subjects – the knowledge is acquired integrally, by developing seven competencies in all activities in which the child participates, in order to ensure the balance and coherence of all competencies in different content areas. Excluded content areas are given equal volume. It is being focused on the purpose and goals of preschool education, areas of achievement and intended achievements. The learning content is divided into five areas of learning content: • language education; • social education; • STEM education(natural science, mathematics and informatics, technological education); • health and physical education; • artistic education. The general curricula for pre-primary, primary, basic and secondary education must ensure vertical and horizontal coherence of content, possible interdisciplinary links, and indicate how they can be meaningfully disclosed including the interdisciplinary topics set out in the General curriculum framework updating guidelines: • personal power, • cultural identity and community spirit, • sustainable development. The volumes of primary, basic and secondary education curricula are presented distinguishing between compulsory subject content (about 70 per cent) and optional content (about 30 per cent), which is selected and modelled by the teacher himself, taking into account school, classroom context, student needs, achievements, possibilities and in coordination with other teachers as required. When implementing optional content, more time is devoted to the development of certain skills, values, and learning of subject topics. Project works can be organised, interdisciplinary themes can be developed, time can be allocated for cognitive, cultural, artistic, and creative activities. According to the concept of the Guidelines for the Renewal of the General Curriculum Framework, this distribution of the content ratio is focused on deeper learning, integration, topic development, competence development.

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Authors: Kamilė Valiušytė, Vincentas Lamanauskas

The education of gifted students is one of the areas of differentiated education, the main goal of which is to study people with special/particular abilities. The problem of talent is now becoming more and more relevant. This is primarily due to the need of society to develop creative personalities. The uncertainty of the modern environment requires not only a high level of human activity, but also his skills and ability to behave in a non-standard way. It is obvious that the early identification, teaching and education of gifted students is one of the key challenges in improving the education system. However, insufficient psychological teachers’ preparation/readiness to work with children, who behave and think in a non-standard way, leads to inadequate assessment of their personal characteristics and all activities. In January-March 2021, a qualitative study was conducted, in which 10 teachers of general education schools participated. Data obtained through semi-structured interviews were analysed using the content analysis method. It has been found that the majority of teachers are able to describe gifted students, trust their competence to identify them. It has been revealed that certain differences exist between the schools analysed. Some schools systematically and qualitatively educate the gifted, while others lack common agreements on the education of the gifted, there is no system, support for teachers and students. Due to the different conditions, not all gifted students receive appropriate support, and the ongoing programmes accept a limited number of students, which creates a problem of access to the quality education of the gifted. Such situation may have arisen due to the lack of a clear state strategy for the education of gifted students, and educational guidelines for schools and teachers. It is obvious that in order to improve the quality of gifted students’ education, it is necessary to update educational documents, that regulate gifted students’ education and create a unified Lithuanian students’ education system based on positive examples of schools and many years of experience.

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Authors: Vincentas Lamanauskas

Time is running relentlessly fast. The Fourth International Symposium was held on June 21-22 this year. The topic of the Symposium was “Science and technology education: Developing a global perspective”. More than 60 scientists from 18 countries participated in the symposium. Comparing with the symposium which took place in 2019, the geographical distribution of the participants is wide and diverse. Ukrainian, Serbian, Moldavian, Malaysian, Latvian, Slovak etc. researchers participated in the symposium. Another important feature of the symposium is that it was held remotely/online due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. One of this international symposium ideas is – to show that Baltic region countries also actively participate in natural science and technology education research, especially in STEAM context. The second idea is that Baltic countries as well as other small regions of the world need corresponding close communication and cooperation. During this symposium, these two essential ideas were developed and supported. The symposium was organised by scientific methodological centre “Scientia Educologica”, the associated member of Lithuanian Scientific Society. The main symposium partner was Publishing House Scientia Socialis, Ltd. It is significant that even in the conditions of a pandemic, the symposium was properly organized.