Educational assessment

The latest findings from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) unveiled the ongoing academic challenges faced by Bulgarian students, particularly in math. The results, presented on Tuesday, disclosed that the average math score of Bulgarian students remains notably lower than the OECD average, holding steady at 417 points, while the OECD average stands at 472.

The assessment of 4,500 newly appointed school teachers, one of the flagship policies of the government's reform agenda, will begin this coming week, the Education Ministry said Thursday.

Given the ubiquitousness of remote learning, many teachers are opting not to evaluate their students using grades for the first four months of the school year, choosing instead to give a descriptive assessment of their progress. 

The reason cited is the lack of necessary data that would allow them to draw the necessary conclusions.

He told the morning program of TV Prva that the medical part of the Crisis Staff would certainly present its position on that, and that the Ministry of Education would act in accordance with their recommendations.

At the same time, younger elementary school students, from the first to the fourth grade, continue to attend classes at school.
By the decision of the Government of Serbia, on the recommendation of the Crisis Staff, distance learning for older elementary and high school students will be applied until the beginning of the winter break on December 21.

He added that teachers can already translate formative, descriptive grades into summative, numerical grades.
The Minister emphasized that the distance learning process has been going on for five weeks, that he is satisfied during the teaching, that the teachers are now recording classes from home.

Tax officers are continuing to abstain from the civil servant assessment procedure despite the fact that the rest of the public service is now participating in the online process.

The tax officers are stubbornly resisting their assessment through their unions, arguing that their evaluation process, whereby they assess each other and their superiors, will only lead to hostilities.

Students in the country are increasingly aware of the Internet security and virus protection. This shows the analysis of the results of this year's National External Assessment in Information Technology after tenth grade.

It was held in 928 schools in the country and was attended by nearly 45,000 tenth graders, the education ministry said.

To assess the basic physical qualities they will perform five exercises, reported NOVA TV. 

Total of 256 textbooks and kits for the second, sixth and eighth grade have received evaluation "put into practice" by teachers, said the education ministry.

The reason why two textbooks in a foreign language get a "not applicable in practice" rating is that they were not delivered by publishers to schools.