The Central-European regional pattern

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1. Regional equity patterns

1.1. The Central-European regional pattern

Undertaking a mild risk of simplifications, we can identify three different regional patterns on the north-westsouth-east axis of Europe. The Northern-European countries can be characterized by high level of social equity with fair distribution of high or medium quality educational services, that result in high average performance of their education systems. The other end of the axis is the group of South-Eastern European countries, where much larger social inequalities are combined with relatively poor quality education services. As a consequence, the average performance of the education systems of these countries is poor, too. A rather clear regional patter in between is that of the Central-European countries. This pattern is clearly indicated by the average performance of the Central-European countries. For example according to the 2006 PISA survey the performance of the 15 years olds in reading is weaker than the OECD average, these countries score between 494 Slovenia and 466 Slovak Republic. Figure 1.1 Average literacy scores in selected European countries PISA 2006 Source: OECD PISA 2006. As it was already mentioned, the equity of education systems can be measured by traditional, student attainment related indicators and learning outcomes indicators, as well. The common characteristic of the Central-European countries is the fact, that our judgment of the level of equity in these countries largely depends on the indicator and the underlying approach we chose. From a traditional point of view these countries perform rather well. For example, in relation to the proportion of early school leavers all of the five countries are among the eight top performers in Europe. 547 517 508 507 507 501 495 495 494 490 483 482 477 466 460 440 402 401 396 100 200 300 400 500 600 Fi nl an d Ire la nd P ol an d S w ed en N et he rla nd s E st on ia U ni te d Ki ng do m G er m an y S lo ve ni a A us tri a C ze ch R ep ub lic H un ga ry C ro at ia S lo va ki a G re ec e R us si an F ed er at io n B ul ga ria S er bi a R om an ia 7 Figure 1.2 Early school leavers. The percentage of the population aged 18-24 with less than upper secondary education and not in education or training 2000 and 2007 Source: Progress Towards the Lisbon Objectives in Education and Training 2008. However, if we look at equity in terms of learning outcomes in these countries the picture is very different. For example, in the proportion of those 15 years olds whose reading competencies are at the level of 1 or lower the results of these countries disperse around the EU 27 average. Figure 1.3 Percentage of pupils with reading literacy proficiency level 1 and lower on the PISA reading scale 2000 and 2006 Source: Progress Towards the Lisbon Objectives in Education and Training 2008. The above mentioned regional patterns along the north-westsouth-east axis of Europe are very much visible in this respect, too. For example, while the proportion of students with very poor reading competencies is the lowest in the Scandinavian countries, their percentage in Bulgaria and Romania was more than half of the 15 years olds in 2006. 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 S lo ve ni a P ol an d C ze ch R ep ub lic S lo va ki a Fi nl an d A us tri a H un ga ry S w ed en D en m ar k Fr an ce U ni te d K in gd om E U -2 7 B ul ga ria R om an ia S pa in P or tu ga l 2000 2007 10 20 30 40 50 60 Fi nl an d S w ed en D en m ar k P ol an d S lo ve ni a U ni te d K in gd om H un ga ry A us tri a Fr an ce E U a ve ra ge C ze ch R ep ub lic P or tu ga l S pa in S lo va ki a B ul ga ria R om an ia 2000 2006 8 Performance characteristics North-Western European Countries Central-European Countries South-Eastern European Countries Access and participation related problems Mild Mild Serious Average learning outcome performance Good Medium Poor Inequalities in terms of learning outcomes Mild Medium Strong When referring to specific regions in Europe with common heritage and similar characteristics of their education systems most probably we handle the former communist countries or the countries of the former Yogoslavia as distinct regions. In fact, there are several aspects of the performance and the systemic features of the education systems of these countries that show remarkable similarities. However, if we dig deeper into the performance profile of these countries we find out, that these regional borders do not necessarily work out. For example, the analysis of the results of the PISA survey suggest, that Poland is much closer to North-European performance patterns than to the clearly Central-European neighboring Czech Republic. Also, in this respect Slovenia and Croatia is much closer to the Central-European regional pattern than to Serbia. Therefore, when pursuing an obviously valid and relevant regional approach to educational problems we should not mix these regional patterns up with the old political structure of Europe.

1.2. The common feature of the region: high selectivity of education