Mathematics Education Problems and Attempts to Solve Them in Nowadays Lithuanian School

• Main Author: Malaukytė Ieva
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sciendo 2017-07-01
• Series: Rural Sustainability Research
• Subjects: school; teaching; generation z; mathematics; exam
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1515/plua-2017-0006

The decreasing number of the Lithuanian residents has strong impact on the educational system: the number of pupils is decreasing, the schools are getting closed. School is considered to be the provider of educational services, so it is necessary to search, how to preserve and attract clients – pupils. The growing competition induces search for distinctiveness among the schools. According to the theory of generations of William Strauss and Neil Howe, now we have to educate representatives of generation Z, who do not like violence, restrictions, want to be distinctive and are open to the world of technologies. The teacher faces the challenge when s/he wants to convey mathematical skills to these pupils. The profile teaching followed by training based on individual curricula provided more choices for the pupils. This freedom led to the dead-end of mathematical literacy and forced to return to a compulsory national final exam of Mathematics and to change the indexes for the persons entering studies of the first cycle and integrated studies. In the article, mathematics achievements and situation in schools in Lithuania as well as the measures taken to improve mathematical literacy in the country are described.