School Comparative Guide by Projects

School Comparative Guide 2014-2016

CONTENT INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 3 THE PROCEDURE ........................................................................................................................... 4 1.

SCHOOL LIFE WIKI PROJECT ................................................................................................ 4

METHODOLOGY WIKI PROJECT ......................................................................................... 18

THE SEVEN PANELS ........................................................................................................... 20

THE RESULTS ............................................................................................................................... 22 1.

THE SEVENTH PANEL ........................................................................................................ 22

COMPARATIVE STUDY ON OUR SCHOOLS ......................................................................... 24 1.

Education LAW ............................................................................................................. 26

COMMUNITY participation in school life...................................................................... 27

TEACHER: valuation image. .......................................................................................... 29

STUDENTS: age............................................................................................................. 32

SCHOOL LIFE ................................................................................................................. 34

SCHOOL & WORKING ................................................................................................... 35

INTRODUCTION Throughout this project we, because of a deep interest among all participants to better know each other, have been collecting information that we found interesting offer it as another final product that adds value to our project. We have worked together 6 schools from six countries - Finland, Greece, Iceland, Italy, Slovenia and Spain - with different social, economic, historical and even climatological features, ultimately from very different cultures but very interested in learning from each other to improve our teaching and thus benefit our students. At first we saw two very different blocks: the north - Finland, Iceland and Slovenia - and the south Greece, Italy and Spain that corresponded to the results obtained by these countries in Pisa. In that sense it seemed that the North would give order, organization and the South creativity, improvisation ... following the well-known topics. But the topics, although reflecting a reality, give an exaggerated and simplified idea. The reality has many faces, it is much more complicated, fortunately. I must say that this result cannot be generalized to the social set of different countries and has been carried out by only one school per country and that is totally irrelevant. It is only our experience: a sample.

THE PROCEDURE The student participation and involvement in the project has been our goal from the beginning and, therefore, we created a wiki with 3 projects that deal with different issues which we thought would result in the final products scheduled. Thus, a project called "School Rules", which later changed to "School life"; another was called "Methodology" and the last one called "Social life" that soon changed its name to "Career Guide" to enable students also participate in the preparation of the third product of our project: "Job Search Guide". 1. SCHOOL LIFE WIKI PROJECT In the "School life" project, students created a grid with topics that interested them and were filling it with information about their country. As topped the grid they were also commenting on what they had read from other countries as well, this work was great as, not only they knew the schools, but it encouraged communication between them. In the project called Methodology students worked the grouping in the different schools while making comments about it, in this project is where the importance of homework has been worked, preparing a questionnaire which was answered online and the results are offered in this guide. As the project developed we were seeing the need to create surveys so that they were filled out by parents and by the students themselves and the surveys “Homework” and the “Involvement of families” were created. Experience with the wiki has been so interesting that we will keep it active when the project ends. Teachers have also been actively involved in developing an online questionnaire, which has been designed by all countries’ ideas and has been answered by the national coordinators of the project after getting consensual answers from their respective teams. A questionnaire - comparative guide questionnaire - has been created and then answered by each country with relevant information that had not been clear throughout the process.

This is the first project, SCHOOL RULES, and the grid created by the students where they wrote their conclusions about the different topics.

Some pages based on these topics were created so that students could start discussions and give their opinions, they are on the WIKI right side bar. 10

In the same first wiki project- School Rules- our studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; parents completed a survey

Here we are an example

2. METHODOLOGY WIKI PROJECT The Methodology was also discussed, and so we created another project devoted to this topic.: METHODOLOGY where a survey about the Homework was embedded.

Every country answered it and the results were published on the wiki. The Curriculum was another important topic discussed in the project as we can see here

What invited the studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; discussions:

3. THE SEVEN PANELS As a result of the project work and the visits to the partner countries, we conducted a project week in which there was a special day dedicated to students to submit the entire school community, including parents and authorities, the information collected. There was an exhibition called "Seven Panels" because throughout the week were exhibited seven panels with information on the schools of the seven components of the project countries and one panel was left blank to be filled at the end of the project.

GREECE

FINLAND

ITALY

SLOVENIA…………………………………….,,,…. SPAIN

At the end of the project in the last days of the school year, the seventh and last panel was completed

THE RESULTS 1. THE SEVENTH PANEL

The Seventh panel from ICELAND

FINLAND

From GREECE

from ITALY

From SLOVENIA ………………………………………………………………… from SPAIN

2. COMPARATIVE STUDY ON OUR SCHOOLS a. First Online survey & results Later we decided to create a questionnaire to be answered by the teachers from each partner country. We uploaded it to our website to be answered on line. The results were also published there.

b. Second Questionnaire survey & results As a result of the First questionnaire we came to the conclusion that there was some important missing information and a second questionnaire was elaborated to complete the first one. THE QUESTIONNAIRE 1. Education LAW a. consensus b. law stability 2. COMMUNITY participation in school life. a. Family, socio-cultural resources (libraries, toys-libraries, cinemasâ&#x20AC;Ś) 3. TEACHER: valuation image. Appropriate selection criteria: a. academic competition, technological skills, individual interview: personal empathy and communication skills, ability to excite & encourage curiosity. b. Teacher evaluation c. social prestige 4. STUDENTS a. Difference private / public school b. Subsidies to private school? c. Students Selection criteria to enter the private schools d. School-minorities i. Early school leaving ii. minority integration 5. SCHOOL LIFE 25

a. Discipline 6. SCHOOL & WORKING a. Do we prepare students for the working world? b. Do students choose the appropriate studies? THE COUNTRIES’ ANSWERS 1. Education LAW c. consensus d. law stability Finland: In Finland, one of the basic principles of education is that all people must have equal access to high-quality education and training. The basic right to education and culture is recorded in the Constitution. Public authorities must secure equal opportunities for every resident in Finland to get education. In Finland education is free at all levels from pre-primary to higher education. Adult education is the only form of education that may require payment. THe Parliament makes the decisions on the contents of legislation on education and research based on government proposals. Primary and secondary schools follow a national curriculum, which has just been updated (Autumn 2016). So, schools have national guidelines, but they also have some freedom when implementing the national guidelines and they can for example take into consideration the locals needs and special circumstances. There is a clear consensus that the national curriculum and other educational legislation should be followed, and although some reforms cause more debate and discussion than others, generally speaking the national legislation works well. Greece There is a general consensus referring to education law and also a basic frame, but according to the political situation and governmental changes this frame may alter. Iceland The Icelandic school system has been going through several changes throughout the years. There have been extensive curriculum changes with the aim of increasing choice for each student and better enable teacher to tailor make a curriculum around an individual student. A lot of emphasis has been made on preparing each student for a democratic participation and how to be a good citizen. There is considerable consensus about these issues and it has not been changing with a new government. Italy: A.) It’s very hard to talk about consensus, as it depends on personal outlook, political opinion, the level of schools one is working in etc. It’s true that Italy is changing its school system and its laws but it does not do it too quickly, so there is a lot of time to digest novelties and allow for some basic consensus. B.) There are really a lot of laws, which are thorough-going, and if you are a headmaster you usually know them to quite an extent as you have to work with them. The most recent 26

laws always ask for a lot of work! E.g. this previous year a law came out that asked from each school to make a three-year plan in advance for all the school projects and activities, based on a self-evaluation that we had to put on a national web site. One can easily imagine that to produce these documents took a lot of time, reading, thinking, discussing etc. This summer we are asked to unit in nets of schools, which will have a say in things to be bought, in teachers’ substitutes etc. So, there is always something to make you be alert, on the other hand there is also a lot of opportunities in this- provided, of course, that you are constantly well- informed and on the go. Slovenia: The Slovenian school system has seen a number of changes in recent years – 9-year primary school education, higher vocational education, universities (the Bologna reform). These changes are intended to ensure a higher educational level for as many people as possible. The state, together with social partners (employers and trade unions), plans, programs and provides vocational and technical education - consensus. Over the last fifteen years there have been several legislative and structural changes, rapid institutional development, and a significant increase in student numbers in higher education in Slovenia. Luckily, though, the system does not change with every new government. Spain Since the beginning of democracy, the Education Laws in Spain have been passed with the consensus of most political parties. However, changes of government have generally implied changes in Education Policies. Only the last Law- LOMCE-, has come out just with the only support of the political party in power (Partido Popular). From 1976 Spain has had seven different Education Laws. Consequently, there is a need in Spanish society for some stability in the education system. The teaching and learning process shouldn´t be shaken every short time by political changes. 2. COMMUNITY participation in school life. a. Family, socio-cultural resources (libraries, toys-libraries, cinemas…) Finland: Community participation in school’s is generally speaking greater with younger students, as the parents are more involved with school. Schools and families in primary and secondary schools use electronic messaging systems to communicate daily. With this system teachers and parents can send each other messages, report absences, give feedback on the students’ behaviour, etc. Most schools have Parent Teacher Associations where teachers and parents work together on eg. fundraising activities. Schools also work together with local businesses to organize job fairs and visits to local workplaces, some companies sponsor school programs like international exchange programs. Schools have some cooperation with local libraries, theatres, other educational institutions, etc.

Greece Community participation is generally limited in school life. In every school in Greece there is a parental council whose role is quite limited. Apart from this general consensus, according to the new syllabus, there has been an effort to get local community and parents involved more actively in school life. The city council is more often using school infrastructures to implement several programmes such as dance clubs, drama clubs or even sports activities. Iceland Generally, the family plays a big role in school life. There is a board of parents whose main purpose is to organize certain events and cooperate with each other when i.e. the school is participating in an international project like Erasmus. Various institutions, both private and public offer students access to their facilities. This includes libraries, cinemas, fun-parks, museums, public transport etc. It takes a village to educate a child well. Italy: It really depends. Parents are usually much more involved in lower grade classes- the primary school, for example. Yet the law asks the parents to be involved in class meetings twice a year in all school grades and there are parent representatives in all the highest school decisional bodies. So formally the parents and through them the community are present. For the other facilities it much depends on single schools, the rule usually being that the whole-day schools need more facilities than half- day schools. To notice, the high schools are all half- day schools, so they do not look at all like college campuses. Slovenia: At every school in Slovenia there is a parent council that takes care of the organised carrying out of parents' interests at a school. At their meetings, teachers and the principal present the work and results at a school in the past year, and then parents make recommendations to improve things and decide on some extracurricular activities. The parents who are present there are the representatives of every single class at our school (24 parents) and they speak in the name of the whole class (parents also have parent-teacher meetings at least twice a year, where they discuss things and then the representative presents their ideas at the parent council). Students at our school participate in different activities after school and at weekend and are therefore important members of our community - they visit the elderly at the nearest residential home; the children in the kindergarten; are volunteers in a dog shelter, etc. They also work with some of the experts and professors at the nearby universities, who help them with their research projects. We also have a school choir and a drama club, who perform every year and all of the parents and teachers are invited to come. Spain Families are represented by a parents ‘association called AMPA (Asociación de Madres y Padres de Alumnos). 28

The representatives are elected by the rest of the parents. They have monthly meetings and there is a suggestion box where all parents´ ideas are collected. Despite this, parental implication in public schools is rather low. Our students visit elderly people in a nearby residential home where they prepare performances to entertain them. This activity is under a volunteering programme called Seniors &Co carried out by our school. We also run a volunteering programme which ends up every year with a Solidarity Concert. Most parents attend this concert to see their children. However, in general, parents are only interested in their children´s results and not in the general management of the school. 3. TEACHER: valuation image. Appropriate selection criteria: a. academic competition, technological skills, individual interview: personal empathy and communication skills, ability to excite & encourage curiosity. b. Teacher evaluation c. social prestige Finland: Teaching is a respected profession and there is competition to get into teacher training. Professional teachers have to have a Master’s degree and it is illegal to hire unqualified teachers for permanent posts. Class teachers (grades 1-6) are selected straight into a teacher training program, whereas subject teachers (grades 7-12) first study their major and minor subjects at university and after completing a certain amount of subject studies, apply for a teacher training program. Teachers’ work performance is evaluated on the school level, usually this means having regular development discussions with the principal. There are no national evaluation schemes. When teachers apply for permanent posts they usually have interviews and they might be required to give a sample lesson. Again, this is decided on the school level. Many teachers conduct regular self-evaluation by collecting course feedback from students. Greece The appropriate selection criteria to become a teacher are academic skills and physical and mental health. There is a two-year trainee period and after that an evaluation report is signed by the school principal to give you the way to go on with your teaching career. Referring to the social prestige things have changed since the past. We can say that some years ago teachers were generally accepted and respected by the communities and their job was highly prestiged. Nowadays, there is a kind of lower respect and acceptance.

Iceland To become a teacher a person must finish a university degree in the subject the person wishes to teach or specialize in, and then take a special teacher degree, with the main focus on pedagogy. Teachers need to hone their skills in communication, ability in encourage curiosity and organizing. Nowadays a teacher must have good technical skills and always seek to improve him/herself. Teacher must take re-education classes every year for 150 hours. Teachers do not have a high social status in Iceland. Italy: The selection is tough and you enter after passing competition- exams, where you compete for a definite number of available places. You have to have a university degree but you are not specifically asked to master digital skills. The exam has a written and an oral part, where the communicative skills are clear. You are then put in a list and you can choose the school where you will teach according to the availability. So single school and their headmistresses have no say in this. They cannot choose who is going to teach at their schools! The new teachers enter permanently in the school system after one year and are evaluated by the single schools. Social prestige: I believe there is a definite social prestige in being a teacher, as you perform a useful public role. But on the other hand, the teachers’ salary doesn’t seem to match the years employed to become a teacher, so if the prestige is solely measured by income, it is not high. Slovenia: If you want to become a teacher in Slovenia, there are different ways to do it: -

If you want to teach in primary school, you normally enrol into Faculties of Education. The programmes last for four years, and when you graduate you either become a teacher in the first cycle of elementary school or a teacher who teaches one or two courses or course segments in primary school. - If you want to teach in secondary school, you enrol into different faculties, like the Faculty of Arts (if you want to teach English, Spanish, German, Psychology, Geography, History, etc.), the Faculty of Mathematics, the Faculty of Computer and Information Science, Biotechnical Faculty, etc. The programmes normally last for 3 + 2 years. - If you want to teach at faculties, you need to finish one of the courses mentioned above, plus work at a faculty as an assistant, researcher, etc. and get at least a Master’s degree, if not a Doctorate. Students at the end of secondary school (grammar school) decide to become teachers by themselves - there are no interviews or entrance exams to faculties. During their studies (especially during the last two years) they have to visit different primary and secondary schools and watch teachers teach and also carry out around 5-10 individual lessons (with the teacher of the class sitting in the back; sometimes there is also the principal

of the school present). For their final exam, a teacher from the faculty comes to the primary or secondary school and the student has another lesson in front of him/her and gets a grade. Up till last year, when students finished their studies, they normally searched for internship at different schools. Primary and secondary school teachers had to be interns for at least 6 months before they could take a state teacher certification examination (consisting of 3 fields – constitution, school legislation and the Slovene language). In 2016 they started with another programme, by which some of the students come to different schools, where they are employed for 8 months to get as much experience as possible and they can take their examination after 6 months. During this time, the new teachers get to attend lectures by their mentors, and they also teach under the supervision of their mentors. The principal also has to attend some of the lectures and assess the new teacher. Once you are employed as a teacher, the only evaluation you have is an interview with the principal that takes place once a year. The principal gives you a grade from 1 to 5 (5 being the highest grade) and these grades help you with promotion. At our school and at some other schools as well (especially faculties) we also have a students’ evaluation, meaning that once a year our students assess us as teachers. The results are visible only to us and the principal and our interview with the principal is also based on these results. The profession of a teacher has lost a lot of prestige in the last 50 years in Slovenia. In the 1950s, 60s, 70s… students were afraid of teachers and teachers were respected. Nowadays, it is definitely good that students are not afraid of teachers, but unfortunately they do not respect them and teachers do not have a lot of authority. The problem lies in the whole society, because being a teacher is not considered a respectable profession. Consequently, the salary is quite low, especially if you are a new teacher and the union fights the government every year to increase teachers’ salaries because they reduced them during the recession. Spain In Spain all applicants must pass a state examination for both Secondary and Primary Education. In this exam you are tested your theoretical knowledge of the subject and your pedagogical capabilities. The technological skills are not evaluated in the entrance test but today they are considered a positive aspect, that means that nowadays most of the teachers are not very skilled in the use of ICT but we hope they will be in the future as the new applicants arrive. Regarding individual interview to detect personal empathy and communication skills, ability to excite & encourage curiosity is not part of the evaluated issues in Spain, and we really doubt they can be evaluated in just one interview, other instruments should be applied in a long term. Once you have passed the test you have a one-year trainee period and after that the Head of your Department and the Headmaster give the nod. We consider that the selection criteria are appropriate. However, there is not an adequate monitoring of the teaching practice.

In relation to the teacher evaluation there is a lack in the Spanish education system, Teacher are only evaluated in special situations, when they want to be promoted or something very special happens but it is not officially regulated. Referring to the social prestige things have changed since the past. We can say that some years ago teachers were generally accepted and respected by the communities and their job was highly prestiged. Nowadays, in general, teachers think they are not valuated enough, although it is valuated 7 out of 10 in some statistics, the appreciation of the teachers is different. 4. STUDENTS: age. a. Difference private / public school b. Subsidies to private school? c. Students Selection criteria to enter the private schools d. School-minorities i. Early school leaving ii. minority integration FINLAND Private schools are very rare in Finland. The vast majority of schools are public schools run by the cities and there aren’t very big differences between schools, although in bigger cities, where there are eg. many high schools to choose from, some schools might be considered more prestigious than others. High schools can choose their students, so especially in big cities, some schools have better results in the national school leaving exams (the matriculation exams) as they have been able to choose their students based on the students’ prior academic success. Some areas tend to have more students with various ethnic backgrounds and this is a challenge for the schools in those areas as the students might not have a good knowledge of the Finnish language, their educational backgrounds are very different, and some students may have very little previous schooling. Cultural differences also need to be taken into consideration. Early school leaving is not a big problem, as students are able to change schools (eg. high school to vocational school) quite easily. GREECE Students in Greece can attend both private and/or public schools because both have the same curriculum. Private schools offer a number of extra-curriculum activities like sports, projects and so on and so forth. Fees for private schools are being paid by the students’ parents. Some schools have selection criteria for students’ entry, exams, grades, or interviews. There are few minority integration schools in certain regions around Greece, where there are more foreign students. The percentage of early school leaving is quite low.

ICELAND 32

There are not many private schools in Iceland. However, there is considerable political will to change that. Private school are funded by the government and they can choose the students they get into the school. The public system has been undergoing considerable austerity measures over the past 2 decades which has made it difficult for them to further evolve. ITALY Italy doesn’t have a great tradition in private schools. They are rare, many times present mainly in big cities, sometimes with a religious background and patronage. But these private schools are in fact also co-funded by the state. The state schools had from the very beginning the function of standardising the varied regional realities and they still stress the national standards in education. Of course, for the private education parents need to pay more but there is no strict entrance selection. The most prestigious schools are still the state schools. In Italy we have some regions and some schools with a different teaching language - ours is e.g. Slovene in the region of Friuli- Venetia Giulia, while in the region of Alto Adige – South Tyrol, where the city of Bolzano is, the teaching language in many schools is German. Probably, the greatest effort nowadays for Italy is the school integration of many newcomers, who are immediately put into regular classes. The drop-out exists, especially in socially disadvantaged areas, yet there is a great, also financial effort, to try to diminish it, also in line with European aims and goals. SLOVENIA There are not a lot of private primary schools in Slovenia, but there are some secondary schools, which also get some subsidy from the state, and of course they have intuition fees. The education system in Slovenia is almost fully financed from the state budget; some of the money is also provided by local authorities. Studying at universities is also free of charge, with the exception of some private faculties. In Slovenia some of the best secondary schools and faculties are public, and most children attend them. Some of the private schools have a different curriculum, but then students have to study extra for the final exam at the end of secondary school – Matura – because it is a state exam and therefore the same for all the students in Slovenia). a. Students Selection criteria to enter the private schools If a student wants to enrol into a private primary school, the parents have to attend an interview at the school and the child needs to pass a test (this is true for Waldorf primary school). b. School-minorities i. Early school leaving ii. minority integration We do not have a lot of problems with minorities in Slovenia; most of the children from foreigners integrate quite well and finish their education. In the past there were a lot of

problems with the Roma people, because they did not have primary education, but nowadays the state / local authorities focus more on their children, who then finish at least primary school SPAIN In Spain there are three different kind of schools: public, government-subsidised private, and private. The former two share the same official curriculum but the private ones can have their own curriculum even if their students have to pass the same state exam to enter University. There are very few private schools in Spain and they are very expensive. The other two, the public and the government funded private schools have the same selection criteria. However, the profile of the student is not often the same. The extra fees which have to be paid (parent associations, extra-curricular activities and so on) are not compulsory, however they have a strong influence when the parents choose the school. Besides, most of them donÂ´t have the adequate pedagogical resources to deal with students with special needs and they all have to go to public schools. Most immigrant students attend public schools because they are completely free and they have the resources to receive the proper attention. In addition, many are Catholic schools, so Muslim students donÂ´t want to attend them. As far as Early School Leaving is concerned, the latest data from the national labour force survey show the ESL rate fell below the psychological barrier of 20% (at 19.97%) for the first time since records began. It is still far from the European average of 11.1%. 5. SCHOOL LIFE 4. Discipline FINLAND Schools have various policies on discipline, and although discipline is always an issue on level, generally speaking discipline in schools is quite good. Students are given a lot of responsibility and they take their studies fairly seriously. Problems with discipline occur on the student or class level, usually not on the school/city/national level. GREECE There is a generally accepted discipline frame, but at the same time each school has its own discipline rules. The school Principal and the teaching staff are responsible for implementing these rules and both students and parents are becoming aware of the school rules by the beginning of the school year.

ICELAND Icelandic learners enjoy quite a lot of liberty, in a balance with discipline. They main idea is to make them self-governing. ITALY Discipline is important but it is not over-ÂÂevaluated. There is a precise code of behaviour, for both the students as well as the school staff, so it is not so difficult to follow it. Discipline is included in the mark that the students get for their behaviour and which is part of their yearly average grade. SLOVENIA There is a state document that explains what is allowed and what not at school, but then schools also have their own code of conduct. In most primary schools there are not a lot of problems with discipline, but it depends on the children, their parents and the teachers as well. In the past few years there have been quite some problems with disobedience because of the permissive upbringing, but I believe things are getting better. At our school we do not have a lot of problems with discipline, but at some other schools, especially vocational ones, they do. SPAIN There is a general discipline frame, which is the same for all schools in each region but at the same time each school has its own discipline rules. The school Principal, the Deputy Head Teacher and the teaching staff are responsible for implementing these rules. a. Depending on the socioeconomic level of the students we find very different kind of discipline problems. 6. SCHOOL & WORKING a. Do we prepare students for the working world? b. Do students choose the appropriate studies? FINLAND Finnish schools have qualified guidance counsellors and the amount of guidance and career counselling has recently been increased. Schools work together with local businesses, there are national and local events and fairs that focus on further studies and finding employment. Students visit workplaces, universities and other educational institutions during their secondary school years. On the whole, I would say that there are many opportunities for students to find out about future study and employment options.

GREECE There are vocational schools which prepare students for the working world. In secondary education there is a certain subject that gives the basic frame and the basic information so that students can get a general idea of the working world. In senior high schools and during the last two-years’ students can choose the appropriate studies. ICELAND It is very common that students from the age of 14 are working with school. This is only allowed if the student shows he can also maintain academic performance. At the age of 15 the students graduate from secondary school. They can then choose a high school they feel is most suitable for them. There is a good variety of schools with different classes, and they all have an academic pathway which prepares them for university. They can choose between four main subjects. Languages, natural science, physics, and social science. SLOVENIA Because of the changes of the Slovenian education system, I think our children are well prepared for the working world – teachers in primary and secondary schools tend to stress a lot that education is important and the whole society shares this opinion. In the past couple of years there were a lot of pupils who wanted to study at grammar schools because they did not know what they wanted to do in life at the age of 15. This year, more pupils decided to study at technical or vocational schools, instead of going to a grammar school, which is good, because the society needs employees in trade profession as well. At our school, we carry out a lot of activities that can help our students decide what they want to study and most of them finish their studies. In terms of school leaving and the importance of education in Slovenia, here are some facts: -

98% of primary school leavers decide to continue their education immediately after primary education 84% of secondary school leavers go on to tertiary education.

Source: http://www.ukom.gov.si/en/media_room/background_information/education/educational_s ystem_in_slovenia/ (Facts about Slovenia /April 2009) SPAIN

At the end of Compulsory Education (16 years) students have to decide if they are going to go on with Baccalaureate in order to enter University or if they choose vocational studies which prepare them for the working world. There is an Orientation Department in every school whichtogether with the students ‘tutor- helps them to make this decision. The Orientation Department also helps the students who go on to Non Compulsory Secondary Education to choose the University studies which best suit them.