Sergiy Londar
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1838-288X
WAYS TO IMPROVE THE NETWORK OF GENERAL SECONDARY EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS
Abstract. The author analyzes the academic results of students in State Final Examinations (SFE) and External Independent Evaluation (EIE) in four subjects: Ukrainian (Ukrainian language and literature), Ukrainian history, Mathematics, English for general secondary education institutions in relation to the fill rate of the school. To compare the author used a conditional series: small-scale schools (up to 50 students) – hub schools (up to 200 students) – hub schools with more than 200 students – averaged within the region, country general secondary education institution (GSEI). The comparison of the results by the «average SFE» of graduates of the specified number of schools with different fill rate shows that the results are increasing from the graduates of small-scale schools to graduates of the GSEI. The results of hub schools graduates are, on average, higher than the results of the small-scale schools, but lower than the results of the GSEI graduates. However, in some regions, the graduates of small-scale schools are showing remarkably good results. This serve as the basis for the conditional separation of small-scale schools into «good» and «bad» ones. Comparison of the results by the «average EIE» of graduates of the specified number of educational institutions generally confirms the revealed pattern, but the worst results were shown by graduates of hub schools with up to 200 students. The small-scale schools graduates had, on average, scores better than the graduates of hub schools with up to 200 students, but worse than the graduates of hub schools with over 200 students. The author carried out a comparative analysis of the influence of the factors «an average class fill rate» and «the number of students per teacher» on the academic results of graduates of small-scaled schools and hub schools. In particular, with an increase in the average class fill rate per student, the SFE score in the Ukrainian language will increase by 0.125 or 0.145 points for hub schools with branches and hub schools without branches, respectively. Whereas for small-scaled schools this value is 0.08, that is 1.6–1.8 times less. For the indicator «the number of students per teacher» the situation turned out to be the same. It is concluded that the potential for increasing the quality of education in hub schools is significantly higher than in small-scale schools. Therefore, the network of hub schools needs to be developed. However, this should be done in stages, taking into account the criterion of «good» and «bad» small-scale schools. At the first stage, it is necessary to join the «bad» small-scaled schools. As for the «good» small-scale schools, at the first stage of the network transformation, they should remain, and their experience should be used in cases where a small-scale school cannot be closed (mountainous, inaccessible location, etc.).
Keywords: secondary education, hub schools, reforming of general secondary education institutions, school network, school network optimization.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32987/2617-8532-2019-3-5-17
JEL classification: H52, I21, I22, I28.