“The world standard for secondary education” emerged in the mid-1990s, following long and emotional discussions among the authorized representatives of the EU states and North America which were interested in regulating exchanges between university entrants and students.
The holders of “standard certificates” had the right to enter any high-rating university of the world. Here are the normative-obligatory parameters of the “standard of secondary education”:
1. No less than 12 years of full-time education with a 10-month academic year.
2. The final stage of core education should last no less than three years, during which students of a senior secondary school or lyceum study in depth a small group of subjects that correspond to the core of the planned higher school.
These two criteria are met in all countries of the EU, not fulfilled in the US, and unfortunately, actually are unknown and are not met in Ukraine. Therefore, to become freshmen in Austrian or other universities, young Ukrainians should first complete two or three years of study at our higher educational establishments. At the moment of the highest educational achievements of the USSR, “Stalin’s 10-year secondary school” was in effect, when children and teenagers studied on Saturdays and finished academic years at the end of June after taking the so-called “transfer exams.” About one fifth of the first-graders “survived” until the end and received certificates — these were the most able and motivated students. Universities and institutes received “high-quality” high-school graduates and started teaching serious disciplines right away. A simple calculation gave us the following result: the duration of studies was 10,000 astronomic hours, which is 2,500 hours more than the corresponding figure for our current 12-year secondary education.
One can dream about returning to the improved version of the “Stalin’s 10-year secondary school,” but it would be impossible to put it into practice, since not one fifth but all 100 percent should be taught according to the norms of those times.
The astronomic duration of the current 12-13-14-year versions of the European secondary education is in rather wide ranges from 9,000 to 12,800 astronomic hours, and the specialized 3-4-5-year education, from 2,700 to 5,400 astronomic hours. The corresponding figures for Ukraine are so unpleasant that we will not provide them here, since the specialized education is virtually absent in Ukraine, while academic years are seven-month long on average, and “transfer” exams and serious diagnostics are long neglected.
The newest (after 2000) discoveries made in several sciences that study brain activity on the molecular level explain many of the phenomena related to the duration, content, and methods of teaching at schools. Unfortunately, fundamental processes that are similar to the effect of brain’s “compartmentalization” remain entirely unknown to all those people who are pushing for the immediate switch of secondary education in Ukraine to the 10-year term of education. They suggest that we should not cut the summer holidays, which are the longest in the world. This means total “under-loading” of students’ brain.
The countries of the European Union do not acknowledge Ukrainian secondary education certificates. If we switch to the 10-year term of education, they will view our university diplomas as equivalents to their “standard” secondary education certificates.
Kostiantyn Korsak holds a doctor’s degree in philosophical sciences and is the director of the Kyiv Institute for Educational Policy.
