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Education satisfaction and expectations
Many subgroups of youth emphasize various factors differently. Notably, youth in the Republic of Serbia education system in Kosovo more frequently name ‘financial means’ as critical to their education achievement compared with youth in the Kosovo education system. Although youth in urban and rural areas feel largely the same about the many factors surveyed, youth in urban areas in Georgia and Tajikistan tend to emphasize the importance of a number of factors more than youth in rural areas. In all three cases, tertiary-educated youth also emphasize the importance of several factors more than less-educated young people. Absentees in Kosovo emphasize a range of issues more than non-absentees, while the opposite occurs in the Tajikistan sample, and there are no differences within this subgroup sampled for Georgia. Perhaps most strikingly overall, however, youth most often feel that a factor that matters most is themselves – their level of motivation to do what it takes to achieve a high quality education given their circumstances. For anyone believing youth are apathetic or irresponsible, this high level of self-reflection points to a very different reality. Most youth are highly aware of a need to apply themselves to achieve the education they desire. As noted, however, they also strongly recognize that they cannot reach their goals alone. Many youth are concerned that student motivation is waning under stress and amid change. “In my mind,” an 18-year old secondary school student in Kurgan-Tyube, Tajikistan, says, “Experiences of education depend on the personal will of schoolchildren. It is difficult to force someone to study, and we need to awaken youth interest in education [when it is waning].” In each country, many young people feel their interest in education is faltering amid competing responsibilities for work and in the face of a number of education quality challenges, many of which are outlined below. Key findings: Education satisfaction and expectations • Findings on youth satisfaction with and expectations of education are strikingly similar across the countries surveyed: young people highly value formal education and want more of it while they seek many improvements in its quality. This contradicts a common impression of young people as apathetic, nefarious and troublemaking and reveals them instead as eager stakeholders in their education and society, bearing important critiques and ideas for improving education quality. • Most youth either feel that education quality is about average or somewhat better overall in their setting, indicating much room for improvement. The relatively small proportion of below-average, negative ratings shows that youth can maintain a positive outlook on education after and amid high levels of political, economic and social instability. Although many youth feel their education quality is worse than their parents’ was, relatively few rate quality as below average overall. • Youth across the three societies have a sophisticated sense of the power and purposes of formal education in their lives. In each case, youth strongly agree that education is important for: all aspects of life (including capacity-building in Tajikistan); job preparation; achieving a better status in society; citizenship and development; and widening perspectives (namely learning about and understanding other people for Tajikistan youth). • The vast majority of all youth surveyed say they desire more formal education than they have already achieved. This holds true for all subgroups of youth analysed, including those who have dropped out of school before completing secondary education. Many dropouts who want to return to school are thus facing barriers that prevent them from doing so. The level of ongoing interest also implies that the quality of education was not the principal factor for most in having dropped out. • Youth in each country rely on similar things to reach their education goals and name the same four factors most frequently as especially affecting their ability to achieve their desired education level. In order, starting with the factor cited most often, they are: personal interest, motivation and attitude; level of parental and/or spousal support; financial means; and support from teachers. For many youth, however, a combination of diverse factors influences their ability to complete their desired level of education, ranging
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Demand for Education Innovation: Adolescent and youth perspectives on education quality in the CEECIS Region