As also affirmed by PISA test outcome, the Estonian education ain’t too bad – internationally speaking. No matter the local discontent. Quite competitive, the thing. Sure, anything can be improved; reverse always is preceded by a standstill. Still, education must be reformed with utmost care, to avoid pushing current results out of future students reach.
Thus, one may scratch ones head at the state exam reform allowing the lazy one to pass by scoring just one point: will a non-satisfactory result really count as a pass? Even so, let’s not forget: a 12th grader is as good as a grown-up, likely to be responsible for his/her choices. Secondly: schools will retain the option of assessing the students by school examination – now a must.
With three state exams now mandatory – mother tongue, math and a foreign language –, upper secondary schools /gymnasiums) may now be compared. Up to now, the option wasn’t there. Obviously, if one school shows strong results and the one next door is doing bad – the latter is worse. Standardisation may be cursed, harping on peculiarities in students, school autonomy, local spirit and what not; even so, the dry fact remains: Estonia’s school network needs optimising, both for the sake of teachers and students. And here, comparable state exams results will greatly help.
For the state, the decision has been one of comfort, yet unbiased. Nevertheless: should somebody graduate not knowing how to read, write and calculate – what on earth did he do at school? Should such cases now abound, we will have to be asking: what on earth did the school do?
True, the three mandatory state exams may breed insecurity in teachers of other subjects. We are proud of the broad-based education provided by our schools, and rightly so. However, here is where the mandatory school examination comes into play, for schools to decide with full freedom. Via the very school exam it – the school – can show off its strengths, values and preferences. Thus, the subject teachers need not worry, having lost the option of using the state exam stick. Let the school exam now be the carrot to make a school shine.
The three mandatory state exams change picture for the universities. For a while, state exam results turned into quite a ticket into the academia, bordering on the sole criterion to enter a university. That led to stupid situations: at some narrow specialties, the student body swelled into a herd of hundreds, the professors unable to shift out the brightest. Now, universities will have to work harder on whom to admit. In the long run, Science of Estonia should prove the beneficiary.