Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation Olga Vasilyeva, in a conversation with Izvestia correspondent Alexandra Krasnogorodskaya, spoke about the basic principles of education, the transfer of schools to the regions and human values. The material was published on August 2 on the website of the Izvestia newspaper.

Passing the Unified State Exam even under cameras is easier than 6-7 exams the old fashioned way, astronomy is returning to the school curriculum, 55 thousand new educational places will appear in Russia in the near future, and schools are moving from municipal to regional subordination. Olga Vasilyeva, Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, spoke about this in an interview with Izvestia.

Olga Yuryevna, August 19 will mark a year since your appointment to the post of Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. What could you highlight as achievements and, conversely, what have you not yet been able to solve?

The year has been very difficult and interesting. We managed to figure out what happened and understand where to move next. For example, the Federal State Educational Standards (FSES) of 2004 were very vague; they lacked the most important thing - the content of education. Therefore, the key task was to fill the standards with the basic principles of education.

They differ from the previous ones in that the content is written in them. I would like to note that on July 24, the ministry completed a two-week public discussion of draft new standards. We saw great interest from the expert community and understanding of the need for changes. Users could see for each subject what basic content a child should know in each grade from first to ninth. More than 7 thousand people joined the discussion, almost all the feedback was positive, and we received almost 200 specific proposals. Now these proposals are being studied in detail, after which the projects will be submitted for anti-corruption examination. This is important for teachers, for parents, and for the child himself.

If we create a unified educational space, we must create a conceptual vision, standards on the basis of which we write textbooks. 1423 textbooks on the federal list is an unimaginably large number. There was a lot of discussion about the historical and cultural standard, however, our children are going to study this year using textbooks written on the basis of the historical and cultural standard. I emphasize that we are talking about two or three lines of textbooks, among which there must be basic and in-depth textbooks.

These are the main tasks in school education that confronted me in the first year.

- Are there problems that you wanted to solve, but have not yet succeeded?

Being an emotional person, I still try to soberly evaluate what I do. Of course, not everything works out. I have enough opponents, I always invite them to dialogue. If you think something is bad, come and prove it, explain, together we will do better.

My most important concern is pedagogical education, teacher training, otherwise we will not be able to solve all the problems. There will be no revolutions here - I am only for the evolutionary path. Everything new is well forgotten old, but in new technological realities.

These include issues of preparing subject certification for teachers. We have a great idea that will come to life very soon - a national teacher growth system. We are talking, first of all, about building a system for improving the quality of teaching and training the teaching corps.

Russian President Vladimir Putin gave instructions to develop a system of teacher growth following a meeting of the State Council on Improving the General Education System, held on December 23, 2015.

In particular, it is necessary to form a national system of teacher growth, which will determine the levels of proficiency in professional competencies teaching staff, confirmed by certification results. It is also expected that the opinions of graduates of general education organizations will be taken into account, but not earlier than four years after they have completed their studies in such organizations.

There are more tasks ahead than we have managed to accomplish.

There are critical statements addressed to you regarding the reassignment of schools to the regions. Opponents say that in this case, municipalities will not be motivated to attract additional funds to institutions.

We already have two regions that work according to this scheme - Moscow and the Samara region. In this matter, the numbers speak for themselves.

For example, in the Samara region, changes made it possible to reduce the share of costs for maintaining education authorities. From 8.2% to 3.1% of the industry budget. And such a remarkable indicator: over the past six years, in the “Russian Teacher of the Year” competition, three winners and one absolute winner are representatives of the Samara region.

At the end of 2016, Moscow took sixth place in the international ranking of educational systems PISA, which is considered the largest international study of the quality of education. This system assesses the literacy skills of school students aged 15 in reading, mathematics and science.

The advantage of regional subordination is that the content is built more rigidly and clearly, and financial side becomes more transparent. I see many benefits of transferring schools to the regions. When my opponents say that it will be bad, I invite discussion.

- Can the program of consolidation of educational institutions be called successful?

Everything is individual. In Moscow, for example, consolidation in the vast majority of cases is absolutely justified. This is an optimization of management, the number of education managers decreased by 3%, teachers’ salaries increased, and the quality of education became higher. But we cannot do this in every region. In the Pskov region, for example, there is a school on an island with three students. There can be no talk of any consolidation there. The nearest school is at too long distance, we can't take children that far.

- Can you summarize the results of this year’s Unified State Exam? And what changes are planned to be introduced in the near future?

This year's USE results are better than last year. And this is the merit of Rosobrnadzor. Over the course of four years, the perception of the exam has changed, the realization has come that this is a state final certification, and not training to pass the test.

In that year of the Unified State Exam 703 thousand people took the exam, of which 617 thousand were graduates of 2017. Violations recorded were one and a half times less than last year. What is especially gratifying for me is that this year almost twice as many children, compared to last year, have surpassed the lower mark in all subjects. In the Russian language, the number of students who did not pass the minimum threshold decreased by 2 times, in history - by 2 times, in physics - by 1.6 times, in literature - by 1.5 times, in basic mathematics and geography - by almost 1.5 times, in social studies, computer science and English - for a quarter.

The tests remained only in the oral part of the exam in foreign language. We are currently discussing in which regions next year we will introduce an oral component in the ninth grade in the Russian language as a pilot project. In two years we plan to spread this throughout the country, and the necessary recommendations have already been prepared.

Experts are sounding the alarm because, according to various estimates, 25-45% of our children have lost functional reading. The child reads the text and cannot retell the content. I completely agree that this is a big problem that needs to be addressed.

- What would you answer to opponents of the Unified State Exam, who note the incredible nervous tension in children when taking the exam?

People have either forgotten how many exams they took or they are younger than those who took 6-7 exams. I'm sure asking a country to pass six exams would be even more difficult.

- They say it’s hard to pass under cameras...

In order to stop throwing cigarette butts past trash bins in Singapore, there were cameras on the streets for ten years. We have passed four years of the new format for passing the Unified State Exam. I think we have made great progress.

The most important thing is that the content changes. The main thing is to change the attitude towards the Unified State Exam as training. We teach children, they are not afraid, because they come to take exams on the material they have studied. That's how we were once taught. There was no wild fear. We returned the essay as admission to the Unified State Exam. Oral Russian will be a pass to the GIA in the ninth grade.

Many refer to the experience of past years, preparing for three exams causes fear, but how will we pass six exams? It is necessary not to engage in coaching, but to teach so that the student can pass the exam. This is the same exam, just in a different form. But when we were in school, we didn't have such fear of exams.

- How do Soviet and Russian school graduates differ?

It is difficult to imagine a Soviet graduate with such information potential, surrounded by such a huge base in all-powerful gadgets.

Of course, the opportunities of modern children were not available to graduates twenty years ago. But those children were, in my opinion, more inquisitive, more interested, because they had to put in more effort to get an answer to their question. It was necessary to find a book, look, analyze. There was no such volume of ready-made essays and all kinds of answers.

I am completely in favor of “digital” education, but I advocate first of all for the head. Everything sped up, but the head remained and should remain with any instrument. The most important task of a teacher is to develop and instill a desire to learn.

- Do local teachers understand this?

If a person believes in what he is doing, then he will definitely get results, even if he does not have the materials at hand, but there is a charge that he will convey to the child. If you are indifferent, you are not interested, you are a bad student, nothing will work out.

This year, in 15 regions, teachers are ready to undergo subject certification - for knowledge of the subject. These will be Russian language and mathematics. This is not a “Unified State Exam for teachers” by any means. The goal is to analyze the situation together with the regions and build a system of advanced training for those who need it. I believe that every teacher must improve their qualifications: subject or in another area, but every three years in order to constantly grow. Then there will be a result.

Today, regions are actively working to create large educational centers, and their creation and work are reflected in the level of education of the entire subject. These are Moscow, St. Petersburg, Perm, Kirov, Tyumen, Leningrad and Moscow regions, Tomsk, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg. The results of assessment work there, including international ones, are very high.

In addition, our schoolchildren show good results and at the international level. We are talking about international Olympiads: in physics - five have gold, in chemistry - 3 gold and 2 silver, in mathematics - gold, silver and bronze. This suggests that a lot has been done to support talented children. And I want to give even more. We need to remember about extracurricular and club work.

- What subjects are missing in the school curriculum?

Many experts note the redundancy of items. Talk about increasing or decreasing the burden on a child naturally provokes a reaction in society. But there is a subject that, in my opinion, should not cause much controversy and doubt - this is astronomy. From September 1, 2017, she triumphantly returns to the school curriculum with a 35-hour course. It’s a paradox: the country that was the first to fly into space does not have astronomy in its schools, but our young men have taken first place in international astronomy Olympiads for several years in a row.

In addition, I am convinced that chess should be played in school. It's hard to argue with statistics. In our country and abroad, children who play chess at school have 35–40% higher academic performance. This intellectual game develops the child. The important thing is that the techniques are so good that the teacher primary classes he can quite easily learn to play chess himself and teach his children. Children should study chess at school outside of school hours for free. And they must also be free sport sections, literary circles, music. It turns out a classic set of five directions. We can also talk about entrepreneurial skills.

There are extracurricular activities - a mandatory 10 hours that need to be used. It's just a matter of small things - you just have to want it. Recommendations will be sent to the regions. By the way, in the Samara region 42 schools play chess. The Tyumen region is playing, the Khanty-Mansiysk Okrug is playing. Huge regions where people play everywhere. Interest in chess in society is returning.

You list what underlay Soviet education, which was lost in the 1990s along with the educational basis.

That's right, education is upbringing and training. You can educate yourself through literature, history, and extracurricular music classes. The humanities block still carries valuable things, although a chemistry and physics teacher will always bring them into the lesson - that’s why he’s a teacher. It is very important what a child goes into life with.

- How does this correspond to the challenges of today - the new technological revolution?

I wholeheartedly support new technologies. But how does digital change human values? Love, mercy, compassion, pity, the ability to rejoice, laugh, love of work are rarely directly correlated with “numbers,” but are directly related to school. It is there that one can talk about human values ​​if the family does not talk about them. The deep foundations are laid in the family, but the school has always helped and will continue to help her with this. I am proud to say that in Russia there are more than 9.5 thousand free psychological and pedagogical centers for parents, where you can get advice from a psychologist or educational psychologist. The number of such centers is growing and will continue to grow.

- Any teacher always has a carrot and a stick. What can be the whip at school?

It is my deepest belief that with babies there is no need for a whip. A little person shouldn't have chaos. There must be a change in activity and a clear idea of ​​what he is doing now, what he will do in 10 minutes, in 15. We start from birth to explain what is good and what is bad, so I don’t see any hard whips here. And the main thing is to love.

In adolescence, you need to explain, talk about situations that may happen. This is a very difficult period in life. A teenager is like a crystal vessel.

- How about putting peas in the corner?

As a parent, I can say that peas are probably not our method. But there must be prohibitions. What is possible and what is not, small man should know from the very beginning. You need to constantly explain. Understanding doesn't come out of nowhere.

Let's return from educational issues to pressing ones. Where is the problem of school construction particularly acute?

Problems in those regions where there is a third shift. This is Dagestan, Chechen Republic. This problem needs to be solved this second - there should not be a third shift. The government is allocating 25 billion rubles for the construction of new schools. And this year we will have 55 thousand new places. This year, 57 regions are participating in the program. We hope that we will finish this year as successfully as the last.

Additionally, we were allocated 3.8 billion from the reserve fund for schools in the regions North Caucasus. We hope that we will build additional schools under the North Caucasus development program. It is very important that schools will have modern equipment and excellent laboratories. It won't be just buildings, it won't just be chairs and tables. They are building huge schools for 1.2-2.2 thousand people and very small rural schools.

How do you assess the level of education of modern university graduates? According to many experts, it is not so easy for them to find work. Employers think they don't know anything.

Even 20 years ago, young people were told that they didn’t know anything, it was just that times were different. The level of preparation is not as bad as someone would like to imagine. Of course, we will do everything possible to make him better. Need to change legal basis so that the company or enterprise does not say that you must have work experience in order to be hired. There are already developments that will enable the guys to start working. This includes support for the most talented, student innovative enterprises, and laboratories that already exist. Innovative enterprises, which are created at universities, can continue to work after students finish their studies. There are many forms of work within the framework of NTI. We have good experience, which can be repeated in new realities.

A year ago, the President of the Russian Federation appointed Olga Vasilyeva as Minister of Education. The historian-theologian, certified choirmaster and former employee of the presidential administration replaced theoretical physicist Dmitry Livanov in this post. “Current Comments” highlighted the most important areas in which Olga Vasilyeva managed to make changes.

Beginning of transfer of schools from municipalities to regions

The minister complained that “44 thousand schools are in no way subordinate to the Ministry of Education and Science (...) and are not subordinate to the region.” According to her, the current system is ineffective and needs to change. As a solution to the problem, she decided to carry out a large-scale reform of school education. It is proposed to transfer schools from municipal authorities to regional ones.

The reform will be tested in 16 regions. It has already begun in the Samara, Astrakhan regions and St. Petersburg.

Study of Religion and Theology

Vasilyeva proposed increasing the number of hours for studying the basics of religious culture and secular ethics in schools. She stated that fundamentals of religion is a subject that strengthens the foundations of morality. The fact that in central Russia schoolchildren most often choose Orthodoxy and secular ethics, and in Muslim regions - Islam, does not bother her. She believes that this discipline is not aimed at religious education.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education and Science has already increased the number of budget places in the specialty “theology”. This year, 475 state employees are studying the science of religion; next year, 632 students are planned.

Astronomy lessons

Until recently, astronomy had the status of the main outsider among all school subjects. The science of stars was, at best, left as a short section in a physics textbook and taught on a residual basis; at worst, it was pretended that it did not exist. Vasilyeva decided to make astronomy “great again” - the subject will appear in the program school year 2017/18.

Oral interview for ninth graders

The minister considered that the GIA was not enough for ninth-graders and decided to create an additional filter for admission to certification exams.

Vasilyeva proposed introducing oral interview In Russian. The innovation will work next year. It is also planned to introduce the oral part of the Unified State Exam in Russian in 2019.

Reducing the number of textbooks in all subjects

The minister has already become concerned that history and geography textbooks tend to be hopelessly behind the times. She proposed “bringing geography and history textbooks into line with the times.” “Now we can do it electronically. Because it’s unlikely that paper carriers will be able to come to school in September,” Vasilyeva said.

Our immediate plans include reducing the range of textbooks in all subjects. She considers 400 textbooks for primary school unacceptable and suggests leaving 2-3 lines for each subject.

Support for banning hijabs in schools

After the scandal with the ban on wearing hijabs in one of the Mordovian schools, Vasilyeva spoke out sharply in favor of the ban. She stated that true believers do not try to emphasize their faith with their attributes. “Several years ago, the Constitutional Court decided that hijabs, as emphasizing national identity, have no place in school. Therefore, I believe that this issue was resolved by the constitutional court several years ago,” Vasilyeva said.

Labor education in schools

Following astronomy, Vasilyeva dusted off another educational artifact of the Soviet era - labor education. She “with both hands” supported the State Duma’s legislative initiative to introduce labor education in schools. “Without hard work, without skills, which we owe primarily to family and school, without the skills to work hourly, every second, to gain success from work, we cannot live,” the minister believes.

The law on labor education was submitted to the State Duma, but parliamentarians still did not dare to adopt it immediately: the draft was sent for revision.

Reduction of budget places in graduate school

Vasilyeva considered that the departments “should have two or three graduate students.” This is how, in her opinion, graduate school “really develops researchers.” The minister is unhappy that only a third of graduate students defend their dissertations.

Vasilyeva proposed canceling accreditation for postgraduate educational programs, making scientific research a priority for postgraduate education, and making the defense of a dissertation mandatory upon graduation. However, this year there was no reduction in budget postgraduate places.

The appearance of speech therapists, psychologists and chess clubs in schools

Concerned about the “death groups,” Vasilyeva intended to return psychologists to schools. “Now my main task (I talk about this all the time) is to return psychologists to school. Today we have one psychologist for every 700 children. It's nothing. Concerning kindergarten, one speech therapist or psychologist for 400 people,” she said.

The head of the Ministry of Education also said that the chess club should be returned to schools. She noted that “every school should have a chess club. Nothing develops a population like chess. It doesn't cost anything." True, there has not yet been a massive influx of chess coaches, psychologists and speech therapists into schools.

School TV

The Ministry of Education is going to launch a unified school TV.

“This school television will be the following: news of the country and the world... news in all areas that can be done, of course, taking into account age. And the second part is school television, their local television, which they are developing. This is what ideally should be,” Vasilyeva said.

Vasilyeva again made reference to the Soviet past, considering school TV a logical continuation of school radio. She believes that this will not involve large costs and is generally feasible, because many schools already have their own TV.

So far, the minister’s actions have not greatly influenced the perception of the educational system among Russians. Over the year, the FOM recorded a decrease in the assessment of the quality of domestic education: 36% of Russians (+4% per year) assess it as bad, and 40% (-4% per year) as average.

The number of those who disapprove of the Unified State Exam also increased sharply (from 49% to 66%). The areas in which Vasilyeva is taking active steps suggest a long-term effect, but so far there has been no visible success in improving the quality of education and its perception.

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— On behalf of the country’s President Vladimir Putin, a unified educational space is being formed. Could you tell us more about what this idea is?

— Thank you very much for such an important question. Education has always, in all periods of our history, worried both the leadership and the citizens, because there is not a single person who is not associated with education. Of course, the issue of a single educational space is directly related - and has always been related - to a very important problem: national security. The question facing the country here is who we are preparing, who we are teaching, who we are educating, to whom we can hand over the country tomorrow. That is, today a student, today a child, and tomorrow a citizen on whose shoulders responsibility for the country will fall.

The concept of a unified educational space includes several directions. But the most important thing is what we put into our training, what we put into our upbringing. Because education is training and upbringing, this is a dualism that is difficult to break, no matter what anyone says. To be honest simple level, then what is this initiative for? To know for sure that a child, having left one school and moved to another, sat down at his desk, opened a textbook, say, mathematics, and began from the place where he finished reading in the previous school.

At the same time, a single educational space requires several steps. The first step, of course, is creating the content—what and how we teach. There were standards that we all knew about and lived by that were good for their time. But each time requires certain adjustments. When we talk about educational content, we must know the core of what we will teach.

The new Minister of Education Olga Vasilyeva raised the new level intensity of discussion about the Soviet school:

• one pole praises the Soviet school and dreams of canceling all reforms, just to return to its fruitful roots,
• another calls the achievements of the Soviet school myths and cites alternative arguments as proof.

It turns out a conversation between a blind person and a deaf person with a gradual strengthening of each in his own opinion. Of course, in strict accordance with scientific data on the ability of people to listen to logical arguments.

In essence, this is the same discussion that is being held about educational outcomes, monitoring of education, and assessment of the quality of education. With full respect for its scientific component, I would like to draw attention to the management aspect, because any scientific model has conditions for implementation and application.

It is the applicability of criteria and assessments that unites the two discussions of scientometricians and everyday metricians, which are striving towards each other. Both words are pronounced the same way, but their meanings are completely different. If scientists sometimes indicate somewhere in a corner of their work what exactly they mean by the words they use (although the definitions are lost in subsequent discussions), then in everyday disputes they don’t even think about it. Everyday discussions are characterized by a comparison of different criteria (rather than measurement results) and a debate about their significance. Strictly speaking, this means an underlying discussion about values ​​rather than performance.

Where would we be without an exam?

An exam like any other measuring tool, evaluates itself: this is the test taker’s ability to solve problems that are presented in this particular examination sheet. The exam can be focused on personal measurements or on ratings - it depends on the selection of tasks.

The system of relationships during the examination is important, because it affects the motivation of all its participants.

In the classical model of education, when training resembles the processing of parts on an assembly line, the exam resembles the military acceptance of serial electronics: what for scrap, what for consumer goods, what for the military service, what for space. .

• A student undergoing an exam is stressed and hoping for a higher status. Since he is not concerned about truth, but about “size,” he can “go all out.”
• The examiner finds himself in a dual position: he is both a demiurge for each subject and responsible for excesses. If he is also the teacher of the examinees, which is typical for exams according to the traditional Soviet scheme, then he is also indirectly being certified. So, no matter how proudly he dissects in front of his students, he is also interested in the maximum “size,” but collectively, and not personally (which does not exclude private interest as such).
• The administrator of the organization conducting the exam dreams of getting rid of it quickly with minimal trouble. The integrity of the exam and the reliability of the results are not an independent value for it. If “his” students are being examined, he is also interested in the highest possible “dimensions”. If students from another school are being examined, and their own are being examined somewhere else, then both administrators are well aware of the likely interdependence of the relationship.

Thus, all participants in the traditional final exam are interested in the maximum value of the score, and not in its objectivity.

The fairness of an exam result greatly depends on personal qualities responsible persons, which in conditions of cynical consumer relations is a dubious barrier. That is why, if there is an external order for honesty, you have to put up with increasingly significant costs, which work only until the key to them is found.

It’s not very interesting to discuss entrance versions of exams: even the most enthusiastic amateurs traditional scheme exams remember corruption scandals well and understand their inevitability. As an antithesis, they cite a change in the pattern of corruption from universities to exam points or buying up answers. Some universities even in new conditions find loopholes for manipulation in admissions campaigns. I personally have not seen any reliable confirmation of the advantages of some forms of exams over others. Except for creative universities, where the lack of informal competencies is an obvious obstacle to learning.

What does the Unified State Exam evaluate?

The Unified State Exam is a subject exam, therefore it evaluates only the student’s subject competencies and ability to solve problems in a given subject. No sob stories about “he doesn’t count” matter because Unified State Exam task not even so much to evaluate as to rank students according to their ability to solve. The Unified State Examination has two tasks:

• confirm mastery of the subject at a level sufficient for graduation from school,
• pass the barrier of competition to enter the university.

Neither the first nor the second requires a full assessment of the mastery of software requirements - these are banal barrier tasks. And there is no reason to accuse the Unified State Exam of incompletely solving the problem. Is there any reason to believe that the previous scheme of local examinations was more fully assessing? Even if yes, why pose such a task? And who should do this?

The previous scheme was built for a specific program or even for a specific teacher. This could create the illusion of a “comprehensive assessment.”

In reality, the local assessment of the local examination measured the opinion of the local examination committee about the examinee. From a student's perspective, this only made passing the exam more difficult, forcing them to adapt to unique local requirements. As in any non-standardized process, this gave advantages to some, and vice versa to others. The rest is a complete incomparability of the results and the opacity of the examination process with all that it entails. What useful a student gets from learning is determined not by the exam, which he will forget about the next day, but by the learning process and the needs of the student himself.

• The first level is the identification of threshold values ​​for school credit. Judging by the repeated evidence of lowering threshold values, the task of graduating from school today is formal. And this is correct: no one needs to return a failed student who has reached a certain age to class - this is an extra headache for both the student and the school. Both sides are not interested in this.
• The second level is the identification of threshold values ​​in each university for the enrollment of applicants.
• Monitoring level - general ratings for teachers, schools, municipalities, and so on.

Fortunately, the time when generalized ratings were used to “assess the quality of education” is already in the past: the Unified State Exam has nothing to do with the quality of education in the understanding of even the developers of the Unified State Exam. But the presence of numbers could not leave officials indifferent until they were reined in amid loud scandals from the very top.

What do international ratings evaluate?

Various international ratings rank countries based on generalized decision results certain tasks based on national samples of subjects. They try to make the sample representative and valid. How successful is this, a question for diagnostic specialists - I have not seen any complaints about incorrect sampling in the press.

But only primitive managers can set the goal of “rising in international rankings” without defining the goals of the national education system. There is the Goodhart (Lucas, Campbell) principle, known since the 70s of the last century, which forces you to be more careful with manageable indicators so as not to turn management into profanity:

Ratings are good for analysis as long as they are not the subject of reporting, as long as they represent pure unmanageable indicators. However, even observation influences the results, since it draws attention to features that, without ratings, may remain unnoticed. Once I paid attention, I inevitably began to work with the identified aspect.

Result of education

It would seem that there is a definition of the concept “quality of education” in the thesaurus of the law “On Education in the Russian Federation” (clause 29 of part 1 of article 2):

...a comprehensive characteristic of educational activities and training of a student, expressing the degree of their compliance

federal state educational standards, educational standards, federal state requirements

and/or the needs of the physical or legal entity, in whose interests educational activities are carried out,

including the degree of achievement of the planned results of the educational program...

However, numerous studies and publications offer other interpretations of this phrase. For example, in one of the first articles returned by online search, E. Yu. Stankevich “On the issue of assessing the quality of education” (2013), on the first page a whole range of options from different authors is offered.

The definition in the law is quite flawed, since the first part of it is determined by the function of the state educational organization. Failure to perform this function entails administrative consequences. The second part is organic for the sphere additional education, which satisfies the needs of legal entities and individuals. In addition, the definition in the law limits assessment to the student.

The definition is useful in the proposed context except for use in the body of the law itself, where it appears eight times.

• The first problem for me is the interpretation of the word “education”, since it has many meanings, even mutually exclusive ones - all of them are presented by me in a separate collection. The most conflicting meanings of “assessment of the quality of education” may be the contexts of “assessment of the quality of the education system” and “assessment of the education of the trained.” Moreover, in the first option there are many sub-options, since the system can be understood as different levels: from the entire system to a specific teacher. In addition, in practice, the word “education” is often used as a synonym for the word “training”. Without clarification, it is impossible to understand the meanings of both phrases.
• The second problem I see is the angle of control: whose results and for whom? We are accustomed to assessing quality from an administrative position, but today the controlling position of the trainee himself is becoming relevant. Since the educational service has already been declared in the law and is openly in demand by the new subjectivity of the modern student, its control functions should also be taken into account, even if not everyone wants and is ready to use them. The point of interest may also be a parent or employer.
• The third problem seems to me to be the unequal meaning of all possible combinations of the subject of assessment, in order to so easily manipulate polysemantic phrases for all occasions.

It is more useful to exclude ambiguous formulations, despite their popularity, in favor of more accurate and specific descriptions of the subject of assessment. Or use them solely in the context of the law, to exclude other options as inadequate.

For me, education and training are not only not the same thing, but also fundamentally different concepts from the point of view of the subject of assessment:

• learning is a process of external influence (teacher on student) for the formation of promised competencies
• education is a personal process of mastering competencies, which can take place in the form of external training (by a teacher)

In teaching, the actor is the teacher, and in education, the actor is the student. Moreover, learning is concrete, and education is abstract (not limited by anything and not measurable).

Thus, in my terminology, it is impossible in principle to assess the quality of education - it is possible to assess some specific competencies acquired in the educational process.

And how they were acquired - through learning, self-study, reflection or discovery - it does not matter.

What can be assessed?

“The results of mastering basic educational programs,” according to paragraph 3 of part 3 of Article 11 of the law “On Education in the Russian Federation,” must meet the requirements of modern Federal State Educational Standards. Of the requirements for personal, meta-subject and subject results described in the standard, only subject results are subject to assessment. At the same time, specific “mastery results” in subjects are determined on the basis of the educational program of the organization, and not according to the Federal State Educational Standard. The fact that personal and meta-subject results are mentioned in the standard forms a well-known discourse on the construction of educational programs. And this is very good. But it states, in essence, the complexity and ambiguity of the task of assessing these results, thus deducing them from our discussion of the problems of formal assessment of results.

An important contemporary discourse is competency assessment. But even here, not everything is simple. Many experts are skeptical about the diagnosis of competencies and argue about the definition of the concept. The related concept of competence causes confusion. By competence I mean some professional quality, allowing a person to confidently perform tasks of a certain type. Possession of competencies means for me a full-fledged skill in the traditional Russian sense of the word. I don’t see any way to test it without the risk of screwing up the test task.

The ability to solve problems using structural strength materials is also a competence, but it does not imply competence in calculating a bridge, for example.

The competency-based approach advances the education sector in setting goals for the system, but it also has shortcomings. In the article by Vladimir Nikitin, an important passage was voiced that helped me understand what has always oppressed me in the competency-based approach: “The idea of ​​competence is the idea of ​​fragmentation”. Without the integrity of the system, the fragments live on their own, without forming a holistically significant entity. Their beauty lies in the flexibility of identifying and adding new mosaic elements to complete picture education. Fashionable talk about “21st century skills” suffers from this fragmentation: they can be planned, cultivated, and even assessed, but they do not add up to a whole. Only everyone will integrate them to the best of their abilities. As it happened before: the teacher, within the framework of various campaigns, carried out something and reported, and the student built something of his own from these campaigns. And his real skill rests on his integrating abilities. How do we evaluate them? Can we? Is it necessary?

Since analysis is needed, I propose the following terminological base:

• Specific Process Aspects(according to specified criteria): conditions, organizational and methodological support, instrumental saturation and others.
• Quality of training how reflection of the learning process can be assessed only on the basis of criteria formulated by the customer of the training. If they are not there, the assessment can be exclusively subjective and informal, based on satisfaction. Various participants educational process will have different assessments, depending on their conscious or unconscious learning goals and role in the learning process. With a high probability, intuitively generalizing different stages from expectations and goals at the beginning to emotions at the end, relying on the memory of changes in the process.
• Learning outcomes how the changes occurred after completion of training- acquired competencies, costs of organizing training, effectiveness of training, new knowledge or aspects identified during the training process and worthy of being taken into account in organizing the next training. You can include satisfaction with the process as an emotional result of the process. Different participants may have different evaluation priorities.
• The result of education for a specific person- his picture of the world at the moment with self-positioning in it: connections, dependencies, methods of interaction, expectations, opportunities, desires, goals, plans for change.
• Education system results- the state of science, culture, technology, labor market; values ​​and expectations of citizens, methods and nature of their interaction, attitude towards other people and countries of the world.
• The quality of education of a particular person (education)- the correspondence of his ideas about the world to the problems that he solves or is going to solve.
• Quality of the education system- compliance of the education system with the needs of citizens, satisfaction of citizens with the conditions for receiving education. For each level of the system, its level of compliance should be assessed: from the tasks of teaching specific competencies to the needs of the entire society and the state, in particular science, culture, technology, and the labor market.

I would like to draw your attention to the fact that these terminological clarifications go beyond the formal terminology - this is a value-based, different picture of assessment, which initially separates the objects and subjects of assessment, taking into account different interests. The traditional integrally illegible “assessment of the quality of education” subconsciously takes all assessments to the administrative field.

You can try to evaluate all of the listed parameters, but the most relevant, in my opinion, should be standardized competencies or skills. They are the ones in demand. They are the ones that are verifiable. They can serve as a guide for everything else. For example, if they are obtained during the learning process, then they are its result. Competence in solving a certain type of problem is traditionally determined by an exam. Whether an exam should be used to assess competencies is determined by the assessment requirements. This is just one of the options.

What can replace the final exam?

The modern situation is characterized by a shift in emphasis from training as a traditional production line to interested learning on the initiative of an active, motivated student. Unfortunately, not all students are ready to play such a role, but it is precisely such students who are the most passionate and effective for the educational outcome of the country. Therefore, such a training model should be considered as desirable and targeted. This means that the model of the old exam as a tool of administrative control over a careless student should be replaced by another, organic for an independent active student. But without prejudice to the careless, of whom there are still quite a lot.

Since the learning outcome is of interest to different participants in the educational process from different angles, they collectively form public interest in a fair result - in contrast to a traditional exam. If we use the experience of organizing the Unified State Examination to create a network of independent permanent assessment centers that could reliably and honestly assess the level of standardized competencies in all existing areas of knowledge, then this will allow us to simultaneously remove all complaints about the Unified State Examination as a final exam (it will not exist) and build a flexible contour of state control over the education system.

Competency assessment centers are interested in honesty - this is their main value in business terms. Such centers make marking unnecessary and meaningless as an administrative tool at school and in any other educational organization: the level of knowledge in all areas and at all levels is assessed at any time by a certified center. Such centers ensure the right declared in the law to any form of organization of education, because everyone studies where and how they want, and only the center confirms the results at any time: study in any rhythm, tempo and direction.

Transferring the assessment procedure to independent structures and unlinking it to time leads to a radical change in the system of relations - it makes the student and the educational organization equal independent players.

Each person begins to build his own assessment of his competence and be responsible for it.

Educational organizations lose control over planning the education of a specific person and must interest him in interesting programs and quality training. Only the authority and benefit of the educational organization will be able to attract and retain students with such a scheme for assessing results. An active learner will seek more effective ways training. The passive learner will choose minimum costs physical and mental effort. But any student himself is the initiator of testing, because he needs to present his results at all educational and personnel transitions. This result is his confirmed competence and at the same time it indirectly forms generalized characteristics of the effectiveness of the education system.

For such a scheme to be more productive, it is worth changing traditional educational qualifications in the form of certificates and diplomas to flexible ones that develop as needed, defining the learning space. Movement along them can form flexible personality profiles. By comparing them with competency profiles, people will be hired and studied, and areas of development will be identified when planning a career. Naturally, in digital form - paper confirmations of educational qualifications are already outdated and are an amazing rudiment of the paper era.

Conclusion

When discussing quality in education, it is necessary to move away from unproductive terms and use clearer names for each of the aspects that are actually assessed. This will force a deeper understanding of the multiple roles of participants in the educational process and their goals.

First of all, it is necessary to limit the use of the word “education”, which too broadly generalizes the variety of meanings it covers and prevents the discussion from concentrating on a specific aspect of it.

It is important to realize the difference between the concepts of “education” and “training,” which is much deeper than we are used to thinking.

In the vast majority of modern references, “education” refers to “training,” which may have been acceptable once upon a time, but is not now. In a professional environment, it would be worth considering the use of the word “education” in an expanded sense, without specification or in the presence of a more precise, unambiguous term, as bad manners.

No matter how we discuss the multiple meanings of learning outcomes, real and most relevant monitoring can only be carried out on the basis of specific criteria and reliable tests. They are needed by all participants in the educational process as a regulator of educational and labor relations. But not as a check of a part as it exits the assembly line, but as a voluntary certification of a free person interested in training or work. The old educational qualifications based on certificates and diplomas have exhausted themselves. The methods of confirming them have also exhausted themselves. A reliable independent system for testing mastered competencies, providing transparent access via the network to all legal entities and individuals interested in building educational or labor relations, would become the core modern system education. Some participants in the process would fill it with subjects and assessment criteria, others would build training programs based on them, and others would build educational trajectories based on the map of educational opportunities.

You can talk about the quality of anything only when there are multiple goals, choices, criteria for achieving the goal and a reliable system for monitoring achievements. Wide choice and transparent control will remove the lion's share of the problems that we have been discussing for so long and quite unsuccessfully in the field of education.

Head of the Ministry of Education and Science Olga Vasilyeva believes that the term “educational services” must be removed from the field of education, she stated this at the All-Russian Parents’ Meeting.

“We just need to change, and this needs to be done now, today and immediately, the attitude of society towards the service of a teacher. Our services must disappear, go away. There cannot be services in the field of education,” Vasilyeva said.

She noted that from the point of view of legal protection for teachers, everything necessary is already in place. In addition, Vasilyeva said that “it is necessary to form the right attitude towards the teaching profession, including through cinema.”

“Fears are probably in vain”: Vasilyeva urged parents not to fear for the future of education

The head of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, Olga Vasilyeva, spoke on Tuesday, August 30, in Moscow at the All-Russian Parents' Meeting and called on parents, alarmed by the forecasts that appeared immediately after her appointment, that Orthodox education in schools will now be introduced from the first to the 11th grade, not to fear for the future Russian educational sphere. The meeting was broadcast live from 12:00 Moscow time on the website of the Ministry of Education and Science.

“To avoid further fear, education is an area where there must be forward movement. I have said several times that we must look, evaluate what was, take the best that is, and move forward. From this point of view, fears “probably in vain,” Interfax quotes from Vasilyeva’s speech.

During the meeting, parents of schoolchildren addressed the head of the Ministry of Education and Science with questions that concerned them and, in particular, complained about the third physical education lesson introduced in syllabus from September 1, 2011, calling this lesson uninteresting for children and burdensome for teachers.

The head of the Ministry of Education and Science suggested approaching this lesson creatively, for example, combining it with music. “What’s stopping us from doing rhythmics or sports musical dances?” - Vasilyeva said, essentially repeating the proposal of the Moscow Department of Education, recommended diversify fitness classes, martial arts and dance sports to improve the quality of physical education lessons.

“We think and do little about the artistic education of our children, musical education. We can do a third lesson - rhythm, sports movements to music,” Vasilyeva said, emphasizing that “the third hour will not hurt anyone.” “Maybe it will be some steps, if you want. Moving well is posture, a healthy spine, moving to music is health,” the minister added.

“Train” is an inappropriate verb: tests in physics, chemistry and biology will disappear from the Unified State Exam

Vasilyeva opposed the idea that schooling should be replaced by “training” on the tasks of the Unified State Exam. “I am categorically against training for the Unified State Exam after school hours - officially within the framework of school. “Coach” is an inappropriate verb,” she said (quoted by Interfax).

According to her, the Unified State Examination will be gradually improved as needed. The Moscow agency reports that test items will disappear from the Unified State Examination in physics, chemistry and biology in 2017, and mostly state exam an oral part will appear in Russian language and literature. “The test assignments from the Unified State Exam in physics, chemistry, biology will be removed, for the first time ninth graders will take the oral part in Russian and literature, we will do an analysis and move on to the senior grades,” Vasilyeva said.

Answering the question of what to do with tutors who offer to prepare for the Unified State Exam, the minister expressed the opinion that they can teach how to answer test questions, but will not replace a teacher and will not provide the deep knowledge that a school should provide.

“The Unified State Exam provides an opportunity from very distant regions to enter the best universities. Here you need to follow the path of improvement and perfection: to qualitatively deepen the state and content of the Unified State Exam,” RIA Novosti quotes the minister.

“It’s simply impossible to prepare for the Unified State Exam without going through the entire program. You can go through a business proposal - for God’s sake, you guessed the buttons, you guessed correctly. But there’s a university ahead, the first winter session, where you don’t have to press buttons. Why step on the rake?” - said the minister. “The child must be prepared, and already being prepared, it is easy to answer tasks,” Vasilyeva added.

On career guidance for children in schools: “The main thing is to want to do it or force them to do it”

Vasilyeva spoke in favor of career guidance for high school students, TASS reports. “Schools need to take this seriously and make every effort to provide career guidance in schools,” Vasilyeva said. She added that all the necessary mechanisms and conditions in schools have already been created. “The main thing is to want to do it or force it to be done,” the minister emphasized.

The school should have a specialized Internet replacement

The minister believes that a modern child can be distracted from the Internet with the help of clubs and active activities at school.

Federal portal Russian education" cites the following fragment from Vasilyeva’s speech: “Parents, at home you can do everything possible to block programs and computer games that take up so much time. You can limit the downloading of files that should not be downloaded - this is at home, here you have the right to decide which restrict your access."

“As for the school, I believe that the school should have a specialized replacement. This means that the child and we must try. It is necessary that he engage in active activities: club work, sports, music, technical creativity, in order to distract him from the desire to be all the time on the Internet,” the minister said.

She added that in October classes are being held to teach safety when working with the Internet. According to the minister, in this matter parents and education system should work at the same time, since the child spends less time on the school computer than on the home computer.

The five-day week will not affect tenth and eleventh graders

Schools, according to Vasilyeva, will gradually switch from a six-day to a five-day school week. “About the five-day week. Today we have it in many schools, and the process that is now underway is a gradual expansion of the transition to a five-day week,” the minister said, answering a question from parents about how children do not have time to rest in one day . She added that, at the same time, this does not apply to the tenth and eleventh grades, Interfax reports.

The minister also emphasized that sanitary standards for the permissible maximum classroom load for children at school should not be violated. “No one can burden you anymore,” Vasilyeva said.

“We will do everything possible to ensure that we do not have not only a third shift, but also a second one - the 2025 program is already in effect, is developing, and will be implemented,” the portal quotes Vasilyeva. Russian education".

She cited standards for acceptable classroom load. According to her, students in the second through fourth grades should study 26 hours a week, in the fifth grade - 32 hours, in the sixth grade - 33 hours, in the seventh grade - 35 hours, in the tenth - eleventh grades - 37 hours.

The all-Russian parent meeting is held in the format of a videoconference with live broadcasts from ten regions of Russia. This is the third such meeting, the first took place in 2014.