By Vestnik Kavkaza
The annual report on education, which is presented by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, says that more and more 16-18-year-old UK citizens have access to education in college and university, but only a quarter of them are literate, according to RIA Novosti. The statistics of the report indicate that since 2000 the number of people with a higher education who haven’t reach retirement age grew from 26% to 41%; however, the statistics show that UK graduates have problems with reading and writing.
In Russia the situation is better, but experts are sure that if the necessary measures and reforms are not held in the educational sphere, literacy problems will grow in the country year by year. According to Margarita Rusetskaya, the acting rector of the A.S. Pushkin State University, international surveys studying literacy, PIRLS and PISA show that Russia traditionally takes top positions in literacy among elementary-school pupils: “The last research of PIRLS, which took place in 2011, confirmed the results. Russia took the 1-4 places together with three other countries, the statistical differences between them were minimal.” However, experts are concerned about the second part of the research, which is devoted to 15-year old school pupils. “We take only 38-42 places among 65 countries,” Rusetskaya says.
To reduce the gap, specialists are developing and implementing new educational programs in schools. Margarita Rusetskaya states that new standards in the educational sphere are being implemented. “One of their goals is a turn in education in our schools from a “knowledge” approach to a “competent” approach. This approach is used in all international research. The point is not about knowing rules, but about using these rules for settlement of various cognitive and communicative tasks,” she explained.
Rusetskaya notes that at the moment schools do not pay significant attention to the competences. However, at the moment certain initiatives are implemented “for improvement of our country’s image and real literacy in our state.” According to her, last year the Council for the Russian Language under the Russian government was established and headed by Olga Golodets. Moreover, in 2014 the Council under the President was founded on Russian Language Day; it is headed by the presidential cultural adviser Vladimir Tolstoy.
Another initiative is the return of compositions as an obligatory exam form for senior students. “A composition is an ability to use one’s knowledge in the sphere of the Russian language in an individual activity and for expression of one’s thoughts and ideas, for example, about a book,” Margarita Rusetskaya says.
She also pays attention to problems of teaching different categories of children: “Our tasks are connected with further development of methods of teaching people with health disabilities. According to statistics, annually up to 60% of such children go to elementary school. These children need special attention, special care, and special methods of teaching. There are children of labor migrants; they are raised in bilingual and multilingual environments, and this is also a specific category and a specific teaching goal which is being fulfilled at the moment.”
