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During the meeting, the Minister of Education, Science and Sports, J.Šiugždinienė, presented to the President the Government’s plans for the national education agreement and increased funding for higher education.
There was also talk of groups of students who could gradually return to teaching in contact.
The priority is the return of primary school children
“Return to contact education must be segmented according to specific needs.
In particular, we are talking about elementary, preschool and senior education students, who will be able to fill in the gaps in preparation for final exams by returning to contact education earlier, ”said Senior Education Advisor, President’s Science. Culture and sports policy at a press conference is broadcast by Jolanta Karpavičienė.
Vidmantas Balkūnas / 15min photo / Dr. Jolanta Karpavičienė
However, he stressed that the epidemiological situation must be taken into account.
“There will be a gradual return to contact education and, in parallel, priority must be given to the order in which teachers should be vaccinated,” he said.
According to J.Šiugždinienė, the current priority is for primary school children to return to school as soon as possible.
In parallel, the order of priority for the vaccination of teachers must be considered in parallel.
By the time they go back to school, they want to vaccinate all the elementary school teachers. This would require 30 thousand. for the first dose of vaccine. “All teachers are scheduled to undergo coronavirus testing before returning to school. Tests for children are also planned. The objective is to keep schools as “clean” as possible from the virus, “the minister later explained on the social network.
However, J.Šiugždinienė was unable to give the exact date from which the primers would return to class. According to her, a prerequisite for this is less than 200 coronavirus cases per 100,000. population.
When planning vaccines, graduates who pass exams could also be considered a priority group.
According to J. Karpavičienė, despite the enormous efforts of teachers and students, it is still noted that students become an undeservedly forgotten group affected by the pandemic: the victims.
You do not intend to cancel maturity exams
The Minister of Education, Science and Sports already assured this Tuesday that there are no plans to cancel the maturity exams this year, but some parts of the exams are being considered remotely.
According to her, refusing the exams would be difficult because they are directly related to admission to higher education.
Photo by the Office of the President of the Republic of Lithuania / Robertas Dačkus / Gitanas Nausėda, Jurgita Šiugždinienė
“We do not plan to cancel the exams. We really do make an effort to help students with learning difficulties: we will organize additional lessons, additional advice for twelfth graders. These include university consultations and distance video, distance lessons. We try to help to the children as much as possible ”, affirmed the minister.
The president agrees.
“The president believes that the experience of the past year shows that by concentrating it is possible to ensure the implementation of the state maturity exams and also to be able to properly prepare for them,” said J. Karpavičienė.
He also said that there was talk of a possible delay in the testing session:
“A comprehensive action plan is currently being prepared and the ministry plans to publish it in the near future.”
Photo by the Office of the President of the Republic of Lithuania / Robertas Dačkus / Gitanas Nausėda, Jurgita Šiugždinienė
It was announced last week that This year’s graduates will not have to take the Lithuanian language and literature exam.
Knowledge gaps will be addressed
Additional funds will be provided to compensate students for loss of knowledge during distance learning.
Experience from the past year shows that concentration can guarantee the implementation of the state maturity exams.
“We will finance additional consultations and lessons, we will transfer funds to the municipalities, they see the situation better, the teachers will definitely be paid,” the minister said.
After that, it is currently planned to allocate up to 698 thousand. EUR, descriptions of the allocation of these funds are in preparation. It will be possible to have more than 60 thousand. consultation hours.
Summer schools will also be organized.
Education Agreement – Until Next School Year
According to J. Karpavičienė, the national education agreement was one of the most important issues discussed.
This week, the Prime Minister sent a letter to the leaders of the parliamentary factions, inviting them to nominate people who could participate in the consultations on the national agreement, so from next week we will start consultations with the parliamentary political parties on the content of the national agreement “, Šiugždinienė said. Then we can tell you more about the main guidelines on which the agreement will be signed.”
The agreement is expected to be signed before the start of the new year.
According to the President’s Senior Advisor, the President strongly supports all measures to ensure that preparations go smoothly.
“The president sees this as a matter of strategic direction. <...> We are very hopeful that this will be achieved and done, “he said.
The cost of studies will increase
On Wednesday, the government approved the MMSM proposal to increase standard tuition fees starting next year, thus ensuring a better quality of higher education.
It is proposed to allocate 35 million for this purpose over four years. euros.
Furthermore, it is planned to reduce the number of groups according to which tuition fees are distributed.
Now there are 8, planned to leave 5.
Prices in the lowest groups are said to unreasonably lag behind others, the gap between the highest and lowest price is more than 9 times.
It is planned to reduce the number of these groups to 5.
According to the Ministry’s data, currently the funding per student in Lithuania reaches about 4 thousand. euros. In 4-5 years, the cost of studies could increase by about a quarter.
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