In some municipalities, the situation is worrying: there are no roads on the black list

When Delfi contacted the mayors of various municipalities, they explained that they were aware of the situation in one way or another, and were taking certain measures to change it. Not everyone agreed with the idea of ​​the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport (ŠMSM) that it is necessary to reduce the network of schools.

Head of Ratings Magazine editor Gintaras Sarafinas mentioned that he was concerned about the Šilutė district. graduate results, which continue to decline every year. However, the mayor of this district, Vytautas Laurinaitis, was a bit surprised by such observations.

“I heard for the first time that our results are as follows. For example, last year the Vainutas Gymnasium (…) was between 15th and 16th in Lithuania. We did not get such statistics, there is an album of this type released by the ministry for all schools, but I did not see them there as poor. We are in the middle, we have 27 educational institutions, “he said.

According to the mayor, these results may be due to the fact that the gym is connected to the vocational training center and not the most motivated young people study there. Later he was increasingly surprised when he found out where he was in the magazine compiled by Ratings.

“Of almost 350 schools, I calculated, we are 198. I don’t know, we don’t order grades, that’s probably where we are. Next year, the municipality will order,” he joked.

Consider more than just grades

Pagegiai Mayor Vaidas Bendaravičius commented that there is a question of how this is measured and viewed.

“If our students took the test in two and one failed, then it is already 50 percent. Fall. Clearly, that already sounds very bad. We have two schools and about 40 students graduate each year.”

According to the mayor, he knows that these schools are doing poorly nationally, but it’s not just the results that need to be taken into account.

“In rural schools, the teachers work hard and the students apparently don’t have much motivation. In small municipalities, there are probably no significant differences of this type. I think there really is a different motivation for students from rural areas. Student tests not only reveal everything, but the school also solves social problems. It is not easy to get a student out of that social exclusion ”, he assured.

According to V. Bendaravičius, the school has to solve many other problems, but these children are really ready for life.

“We really work hard and try to ‘get’ those kids out.” And now we invite twelfth graders to come to school to study more, but they don’t show up. What to do in this case? The principal is driving, the head of the education department is driving, but the results of these students will be really bad. However, they want to go to school, although they know that there will not be good results, but when it has to be completed, they turn their backs, ”he noted.

However, the mayor warned that if SMSM’s plan to close some schools is implemented, these problems will only increase, as there will be nowhere to place children from the problem environment.

It does not depend on the ratings of the magazines.

Ignalina District Mayor Justas Rastikas told Delfi that he was very busy all day, had many meetings, so he still did not see grades. However, they were subsequently prevented from relying on the data provided by an individual.

“The ministry doesn’t follow them either. We do not provide data for this journal because, in our opinion, these are not correct estimates. The ministry does not value them in cash either. We rely solely on the statistics of the Ministry, where one of our gyms is well priced ”.

J. Rastikas said the Ignalina district. the municipality is doing everything possible to improve results, increase the quality of education and is also merging institutions.

“We will also increase the number of math lessons, even the ministry talked about it. We are also acting and we started to think about it even earlier. We started connecting schools last year, now it is schools with less than 60 students that are connected and turned into departments.

Due to the combined classes, we, like most municipalities, do not support their plans to destroy them. This would mean at least 50 percent. If anything, schools would close and leave communities without educational institutions in place and students would experience tremendous stress simply by traveling two hours to school. This is abnormal ”, explained the mayor.