Montenegro is again at the bottom of the table in the PISA testing of fifteen-year-olds, this time with the worst result in the last decade.
Montenegrin students are in 62nd place in scientific literacy, 56th in reading, and 54th in mathematics.
Students scored 406 points in mathematical literacy, 405 in reading, and 403 in science.
By way of comparison, Montenegrin students achieved better results in PISA 2018 - they had 421 points in reading literacy, 430 points in mathematics, and 415 points in science.
The average of member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is 472 in mathematics, 476 in reading literacy and 485 points in science.
Of the countries in the region, students from Slovenia, Serbia and Croatia are better than Montenegrins.
Montenegro did better than North Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo in all three segments of the PISA test.
The students were tested last year, from April 4 to May 20, and as the director of the Examination Center said yesterday Miloš Trivić, the knowledge of 5.793 fifteen-year-old students from 63 schools was tested.
The flood of "Luča" without knowledge
This is just another confirmation that the alarming situation in the education system requires radical and radical reforms, the former vice-president of the Parliament of Montenegro told "Vijesta" Branka Bosniak.
"We are rushing headlong into ruin, if we do not urgently begin to heal this system. Partitocracy has done its job. Politics destroyed our education system, which, whatever you think of the one-party system, was of high quality then, and knowledge was valued, and the educator was an institution to be respected. Today, our educational institutions, quality control agencies, centers, institutes are headed by incompetents, inexperienced in that field and politically eligible, who often camouflage their ignorance with arrogance and arrogance. Our children are being educated by people with dubious diplomas," Bošnjak points out.
He also emphasizes that "the parents, with threats and blackmail, order the educators what grade to enroll their child".
"We have VIP classes in schools, where the authority of teachers is completely disgraced. The flood is the diploma of "Luča", behind which there is no knowledge, so they cannot pass the entrance exams at certain faculties even after several attempts. Prescribing has long since become a general phenomenon, not an excess. There are no sanctions for that cheating either. Children leave school completely illiterate because they are taught by illiterate teachers," said Bošnjak.
He also reminds that "the curricula are plagiarized, the textbooks are incomprehensible and unadapted".
"The writers and poets of the Gorostas, who marked an era, suddenly became unfit for the creators of such a freaky system. Critical thought is not stimulated, but stifled and punished, from an early age. We produce 'zombies' without attitude. The material status of teachers is unsatisfactory. Peer violence is taking on alarming proportions as a reflection of the destruction of family and home education and a weak education and training system. "Singing nationalist songs, videos in which students mistreat teachers, unfortunately, is a devastating picture of the state of our education system," says Bošnjak.
On the other hand, she states, at a higher level, we have a hyperproduction of university degrees without knowledge behind them.
"The worn-out politicians suddenly got their doctorates and became university professors. Plagiarists too. We allow the opening of private colleges in some remote rural areas that produce diplomas in a questionable manner. Not enough is invested in science and knowledge... When you have such a devastating situation, it is not surprising that the PISA test results are bad. That's why urgent and radical reforms are needed at all levels, and we will have the benefits of those reforms only in a few years. I hope that there will be an ear to start this painstaking work", said Bošnjak.
It is not only the pandemic that is to blame for the fact that construction has been overrun
Senior legal advisor at the Center for Civic Education (CGO) Snezana Kaluđerović warns that these are the worst results since 2012.
According to her, such results are expected, not surprising, and Kaluđerović warns that the following years will be even worse.
"This, bearing in mind the past period of the corona virus, when the education process for the first time switched to a force-induced new type and form of online teaching, which even more developed countries than Montenegro were not ready for. Obviously, it turned out that many people were satisfied with this type of teaching, which has negative aspects in some aspects, because now, once phones and computers have been given to students, it is difficult to limit and take them away from them", explains Snežana Kaluđerović.
On the other hand, she points out, the corona period is not to blame for everything.
"The national educational authorities have not done anything in the practical part to implement mechanisms and policies to overcome missed and skipped material, which would strengthen the subjects that include these three categories with practical material, and to reduce for a certain period of time the norms of those subjects that were introduced last into the education system. In this way, he would strengthen himself and raise his level of knowledge in his native language, mathematics and science. "Unfortunately, students study only for a simple administrative assessment, which results in short-term memory of acquired information, and not acquired knowledge in the long run, which should only be renewed and used when necessary," she states.
Kaluđerović apostrophizes that these results of the PISA test are another proof of the violent hyperproduction of "lightweights" and excellent grades without the cover of true knowledge, because they show increasingly poor results.
"Therefore, it is necessary to start the control of the teaching process, without the aim and desire for any kind of punishment of students or teachers, but with the aim of determining the cross-section of the situation in terms of the quality of education and the ranking of educational institutions in Montenegro, but not based on the number of excellent students, but through tests that neither students nor teachers need to be aware of in the teaching process", concludes Kaluđerović.
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