Bulgaria has always had wonderful mathematicians, that has not changed. But many students who come from poor families went to the other extreme – unable to learn basic concepts. Too many students are falling behind, and math is something anyone can learn. This was revealed in an interview for bTV by mathematician Andreas Schleicher, creator of the PISA system, who is in our country at the invitation of the Ministry of Education.
He gave examples of Switzerland and Macau as countries where maths scores are very good regardless of people’s well-being. So every child can succeed.
If there are children from poorer neighborhoods, they should be provided with better opportunities, Schleicher believes. According to him, these children have only one chance in life – to find a good teacher and a good school. The rich do not have such a need, because they have financial opportunities to help them in life even if they have not studied much.
If you ask the children every day how it was at school, if you show them that it is important that they succeed in school, this is more important than income, according to Andreas Schleicher.
“The educational system must be more adequate and more applicable, because when I looked at the programs in Bulgaria, I saw that the emphasis was on memorizing material and spitting it out on the exam,” Schleicher also said.
“You don’t get paid for what you know anymore because Google has it, it’s what you can do with what you know that matters. Bulgaria is already moving towards criteria and competence acquisition. Students must learn from experience. Now the environment should be more active and the student should have more responsibility. The content should be more interesting, contemporary and relevant to life,” explained Schleicher.
According to him, the lower global PISA results are due to the pandemic and distance learning. “We have seen the decline in the quality of results in most countries and in Bulgaria. The pandemic is one of the factors, because at one point the students had to organize and motivate themselves. Young people are not always capable of this. This is not the only reason,” Schleicher clarified.
“Technology is important, but at the same time, technology very often gets in the way. For students, social networks not only take up their time, but also the content that students watch. They are interested in things that are closer to them and are not always curious about the different aspects of life in the world. The school should do more to help them grow up in the world and manage their time. If the child stays on the smartphone until midnight, he will be sleepy in the morning and will not be able to work at school. Here is the role of the parent,” he added.
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