Deputy Minister of Education: After graduating from school in  Armenia, schoolchildren can realize their abilities by a maximum of  57%.

ArmInfo.At the end of 12 years at school, in case of good academic progress, Armenian  schoolchildren will be able realize only 57% of their abilities.   This was stated by the Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture  and Sports of Armenia Zhanna Andreasyan from the rostrum of the  Parliament.

"After graduation, we become "half-humans" in our non-realization,"  she emphasized. Referring to the numerous accusations against the  department, which relate to the intention to change, destroy the  existing standards of schools, the Deputy Minister gave a number of  arguments justifying such goals.

In particular, she noted that according to the  Trends in  International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) for 2015, upon  graduation from school, every third child in Armenia cannot  comprehend simple texts, although they know how to read and write.  "This phenomenon is called functional illiteracy. When you know  letters and numbers, but this is not useful knowledge, because it  does not lead to their practical application, does not stimulate  thinking, and then does not transform into skills and capabilities.  You know how to add and divide, but the text describing a simple  mathematical problem, the child does not understand what to add or  subtract from," she said.

The Deputy Minister said that in recent years, some progress has been  made, since the level of functional illiteracy of school graduates  has decreased from 30% to 20%. However, this figure is not  encouraging either.

At the same time, Andreasyan noted that the problems in the system of  secondary education are not limited to this alone. She also said that  between 2003 and 2015, between 16% and 28% of students on the  International Mathematics Exam failed to even pass the lower  threshold. "This indicates a lack of elementary knowledge about  decimal fractions, the inability to solve simple arithmetic tasks",  Andreasyan noted. In addition, according to her, from 8% to 11% of  schoolchildren received such a low score that it was impossible even  to evaluate them. In the same period, between 24% and 42% of  schoolchildren did not pass the lower threshold on the biology exam,  which, according to her, indicates a lack of basic knowledge, for  example, that influenza is a viral disease, that genes are inherited  from 2 parents and etc.

Andreasyan also reported on serious problems in the humanitarian  field of knowledge. In particular, according to her, in 2019, 20% of  applicants could not overcome the lower threshold for the Armenian  language exam, while in the period from 2017 to 2018, only 54.6% of  the ninth-graders somehow managed to pass the final exam in the  Armenian language and literature. "This indicates a low level of  knowledge of the native language," the deputy minister emphasized.