After the suspension of work in elementary schools for several weeks, most of the teachers returned to their classrooms, and eighth grade students now have a trial final exam. How exams are organized in a semblance of normality
In front of about 64.500 students eighth grade in Serbia on Friday (April 25) there will be math tasks as part of the test final exam.
This date - the same for all schools - has been determined Ministry of Education, while schools were given the autonomy to decide when to organize tests in the Serbian language and subjects within the so-called combined test. On Friday, 2051 participants of the Functional Basic Education of Adults will take a trial final exam.
Schools have been given to organize the tests from April 22 to 30, in accordance with their own activities, the Ministry of Education announced, and it is up to the schools, except for mathematics, to determine the test dates for other subjects.
"Trials and final exams should not exist in these conditions"
At the "Dule Karaklajić" elementary school in Lazarevac, tests are organized on Friday and Saturday, April 25 and 26, Dragana Stanišić, a biology teacher at that institution, told "Vreme".
"Many schools chose Friday and Saturday, the same is the case in my school, which caused dissatisfaction among colleagues. We believe that there should not be a mock final exam, just as there should not be a small graduation in general under these conditions," says Stanišić.
As he adds, it is not right to equate children who have not gone to school for months with someone who regularly attended classes.
"The school had complete autonomy, that is, the ministry made it clear that it doesn't matter when it will be held, as long as it is held. Everything is literally only pro forma, as well as every type of compensation that colleagues do - everything is allowed, everything went through the school administration, in whatever way the compensation is done, it's irrelevant, as long as it's done," adds the "Vremena" interviewee.
The teachers, he says, "have been made clear that the aim is to create conditions so that nothing happens and to present to the public that everything is normal and that the school year will end completely normally, as if we are living in some parallel world".
As he explains, the schools previously organized a trial test based on the model of doing mathematics one day, and Serbian language and a test from an optional subject the next day.
"There are schools that work for three days. Each school has its own model, it's just important that everything is finished this week," adds Stanišić.
As announced by the Ministry of Education, the students previously chose one of the five subjects offered - biology, geography, history, physics and chemistry - from which they will take the third test.
This year, the most students chose geography (46,2 percent), followed by biology (31,4 percent), history (nine percent), physics (seven percent), and the least of them chose chemistry (6,4 percent).
Stanišić, a biology teacher whose students will take a test in that subject on Saturday, sent them online preparations through Google Classroom in February, even though she was on suspension, so that, as she says, the students would not be harmed.
In that school, 34 students chose biology as the subject of the third test.
What does the mock final exam mean?
In addition to the faithful simulation of the final exam process, where students go through established procedures - arrival time, required equipment, procedures and rules before, during and after the final exam, organization of space and work, etc. - the goal of the trial final exam is to prepare students and make it easier for them to take the final exam, as well as to see how ready the students are at this moment for the final exam and what they need to work on in the coming period, announced the Ministry of Education.
The final exam is taken by all students at the end of the eighth grade of basic education and upbringing, as well as students who completed compulsory education under the program for functional adult education.
In the 2024/2025 school year. year, the final exam was supposed to be held on June 16, 17 and 18, 2025, but announced its postponement for five days.
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