In the land of unlearned lessons – Kommersant FM

Many European teenagers’ literacy levels have declined. As Reuters writes, citing a study by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, in the countries of the Old World, young people have recorded a record decline in skills in key school disciplines. This was partly due to the closure of educational institutions due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The OECD has been testing teenagers since 2000. Every three years, she tests their knowledge of mathematics, science, and reading skills.

Researchers note that last year’s results were unprecedentedly low. Then 700 thousand teenagers from 81 countries passed the exam. The worst math scores were in Germany, Iceland, the Netherlands, Norway and Poland.

Some European countries are already concerned about this problem, said Kommersant FM’s own correspondent in Berlin, Andrei Urban: “In Germany they are sounding the alarm due to the horrific results with which the educational test in schools ended. Knowledge measurements were carried out in the country among 13 thousand schoolchildren aged 15 years, and its results turned out to be significantly lower than the indicators even four years ago.

According to experts, today’s students know mathematics at a level that just a couple of years ago was demonstrated by students a year younger than them. In other words, four years ago the test was easily solved by 14-year-olds.

Three out of ten students are unable to solve simple arithmetic problems and apply them to real life, such as calculating whether a discount at a store is worth it or how much paint to buy to paint a wall in a room.

Experts partly attribute such a dramatic deterioration in knowledge to the COVID-19 pandemic. And yet, according to them, negative trends in the field of education in Germany began in 2015. And the coronavirus infection has only strengthened them.

In mathematics, the country scored 475 points, while Singapore scored 100 points higher. The head of the information center for educational issues in the field of economics, Ludger Wessmann, explains these indicators as follows: the loss of each point, according to him, will result in losses of billions of euros for the German economy.

Low levels of education hurt the entire industry and could undermine Germany’s chances for a stable future. In particular, a 25-point drop in math skills actually means that the German economy will lose €14 billion by the end of the century.”

Teenagers from Singapore scored the highest in global testing. Schoolchildren are on average three to five years ahead of their peers, experts estimate. Good results were also shown in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea. Other countries with high scores include Estonia and Canada.

Due to sanctions, a similar test was not conducted in Russia this year. But distance learning has had a positive impact on the level of knowledge of schoolchildren, says the director of one of the Moscow schools, Honored Teacher of the Russian Federation, Academician of the Russian Academy of Education Evgeniy Yamburg:

“For us this figure has not decreased, but increased. As long as non-professionals did not interfere with us, students from grades one to five in terms of mathematics level took one of the first places in the world. In Moscow, for example, they introduced the “Effective Primary School” program and mathematical verticals.

COVID-19 has nothing to do with it at all, because in fact, working remotely turned out to be unexpectedly effective. I’m not a fan of this format, but, for example, introverted children who were embarrassed to answer in class, when working online with a teacher, went from C grades to B grades, and then passed their exams with excellent marks.

So I want to say that not in everything we should follow Europe with its logic, that if there is a calculator, why this mental calculation, and so on.

We didn’t give up on this, because it develops thinking and many other important things that are later needed in real practical life.”

In 2022, Russia conducted its own study, similar to international testing. 9 thousand students from more than 1.5 thousand schools took part in it. Compared to 2021, teenagers’ level of knowledge and skills in mathematics, reading, and especially natural sciences has increased.

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Maria Shirokova