Illustrative stock photo (source: SME)
Children from poor environments significantly lag behind their peers, as was shown by the results of the testing of fifth-graders.
The average success rate of more than 45,000 pupils tested during the 2016/2017 school year stood at 62.3 percent of the total scores. The average success rate of girls was 61.6 percent, while boys scored 62.9 percent on average.
The success rate of some 2,000 pupils from poorer environments (or 3.6 percent of tested children), however, was much lower. In the same tests they scored 28 percent on average in the case of the Slovak language, while in mathematics the average results were only some 24 percent, the Denník N daily reported.
The tasks focused on logical thinking, understanding of text, verifying pupils’ knowledge and the application of theory in practice. It should also offer feedback to schools about the preparedness of pupils to transit from the first to the second level of primary school, the SITA newswire reported.
The best results were reported by pupils from Bratislava I and IV districts, while the pupils from the districts of Revúca, Rimavská Sobota (both in the Banská Bystrica Region), Rožňava, Gelnica (both in the Košice Region) and Vranov nad Topľou (Prešov Region) scored the worst.
The opposition Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party claimed that the results of the testing only confirm the negative trends in Slovak education and are caused by the non-coordinated leadership of the ministry.
SaS MP Branislav Gröhling has pointed to poor results in other tests, like PISA, as well as the Education at a Glance report of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, as reported by SITA.
