Director of the Vilnius Lyceum: In the world, our schools are distinguished by two indicators, currently the situation is tragic

“The teacher shortage is really felt dramatically and the further away, the more it will feel,” Saulius Jurkevičius, head of the Vilnius Lyceum, said on Delfi TV.

According to him, in 30 years no generation has been prepared in Lithuania that can replace the teachers who are currently leaving their jobs.

“There is an obvious misunderstanding when an 80-year-old man returns to work and we are well aware that there are many schools in Vilnius where there is a lack of teachers in one discipline or another,” said the head of the Vilnius Lyceum. .

In his view, the government’s attempts to address the teacher shortage are not bearing fruit. “Sometimes I have the impression that these are imitation processes,” said S. Jurkevičius.

“I think the only solution in the near future would be for Kaunas to be able to teach and help Vilnius with some disciplines. Vilnius could help Kaunas remotely, because there will definitely be no other way out in the near future. We no longer talk about quality training. We are talking about insuring it in general, ”he said.

Specialists in various disciplines are lacking.

Dainius Žvirdauskas, director of the KTU Engineering Lyceum, agrees that there is a shortage of teachers.

“There is a lack of specialists in various subjects. It is already the case that we do not even talk about degrees, it is important to be a hard-working person,” he said.

According to Mr. Žvirdauskas, sometimes, after announcing a competition for the teaching position, no candidate is received.

According to him, the pandemic exacerbated the problem of teacher shortages: “The pandemic led older people who worked to choose the rest they deserved and leave their jobs more quickly. We have an even more acute problem. “

Still, the director of KTU Engineering Lyceum believes that there are still ideas on how to solve this problem.

“If you look at the state, if something was done, it was definitely done. There have been a variety of programs and now it’s a great idea to retrain teachers who can work both in college and in school. I wouldn’t describe everything in one way. very pessimistic. We must collect what is wrong, talk about a specific organization, provide assistance to municipalities, organizations, conclude tripartite agreements with universities and business institutions. There may be many ideas, “explained D. Žvirdauskas.

There are more challenges

S. Jurkevičius told the program that education in general is trying to survive in the maelstrom of reform and change.

“Many of the reforms that are being or have been implemented are not particularly encouraging either. I think there really are a number of challenges for school leaders, given the pandemic and the additional administrative work that has taken place. At the moment, it is not easy to be the head of a school, ”said the head of the Vilnius Lyceum.

“Naturally, the pandemic added challenges for some teachers, not everything went as well as I sometimes wanted. Some teachers had some obvious difficulties in the context of distance learning. Basically, there was no quality preparation for this, nor do we have quality training tools. That’s the obvious truth, “he said.

According to S. Jurkevičius, no tangible results have been achieved in the Lithuanian educational system in 30 years.

“We have not found anything to lean on for 30 years and reforms are being carried out constantly. The constant shaking from one extreme to the other probably led a sector of society to a complete misunderstanding of what was happening. We really have not achieved no tangible results, our contingent of teachers in the first place in the world in terms of age, we are probably the oldest school in the world. Our school is purely female – also the first place in the world “, – spoke the director of the lyceum from Vilnius in the program “Delfi diena”.