The New Ukrainian School will move away from punitive assessment. This was stated by the Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine, Liliya Hrynevych, during a meeting with educators at the Shabsk National Technical University, which is considered one of the schools that will pilot the new standard of primary school in the 2017-2018 school year.
"Today, Ukraine has big problems precisely with the ideology of evaluation - it is punitive. A stimulating system will be created in the New Ukrainian School - where achievements will be emphasized on the same level as mistakes. At the same time, we will not remove the assessment in primary school completely. The 1st-2nd grade should be without grades, but in the 3rd-4th grade, children should get used to the point system," said Liliya Hrynevych.
In order to learn new teaching methods, approaches to assessment and other elements of the new school, on the eve of the start of the reform in the first grade, 22,000 teachers who will take first graders will undergo comprehensive retraining.
The head of the Ministry of Education and Culture also added that the competency-based approach, which is one of the main elements of NUS, cannot be implemented without changes in approaches to assessing and measuring students' knowledge.
"We have to evaluate children on the basis of competence tasks. This also applies to external examinations. Agree that our specialized school is now focused specifically on the preparation of assessments. Without reorientation of tasks, we will not be able to move away from the current model," explained the Minister.
The international PISA study, which will take place in Ukraine in 2018, should help in creating competence tasks for the higher education institutions.
"PISA is specialized in testing the development of 21st century competencies. This study will not only make a good cross-section of the development of Ukrainian teenagers, but it is also a model for the authors of tests that fill the test notebooks of secondary school with tasks," Liliya Hrynevych emphasized.
We remind you that the piloting of tasks, questionnaires and administration procedures of the international study of the quality of education PISA has ended in educational institutions of Ukraine. 1,670 pupils and students from 41 educational institutions took part in the pilot.
