Field of Research:     Primary and Secondary Education Reform
Research Topic:       Issues of Equity, Increased Drop-out rate in education system in Azerbaijan

by Nigar Baimova

An objective that I want to pursue is to be able to further research in the field of primary and secondary education, producing action-oriented policy research paper and analysis, which will address the problems our education system is facing, in particular with increasing drop-out rates in primary and secondary education, suggest possible recommendations as well interacting with people from different backgrounds and experiences.

Problems
It is widely accepted that national development depends on a good education system. Since independence Azerbaijan has been faced with increasing difficulties in all fields, including its unreformed education system. Essential changes and large reforms in the system of education are of vital importance. Current education system confronts the following:

- decline in education budgetary resources in relation to other government expenditures;
- deterioration of the quality of education resulting from the decay and destruction of school buildings, the lack of textbook, - education materials and deterioration in the quality of teaching;
- concerns about equitable access to education as enrolment and attendance rates have dropped at all levels of education.

Why a project on primary and secondary education?
Primary and Secondary education is a vital part of the education sector, since they have important implications for a country’s efforts to elevate the quality of life of its inhabitants. A well-developed and adequately funded education system (primary and secondary education as basis) can affect many aspects of society, the development of the economy, and pupils’ overall development and professional success. Effective education is crucial for development, mainly for economic development. The experience of newly industrialised countries shows that development good education system (primary, secondary and
tertiary levels) allows the constitution of a pool of well educated and trained workers who can play an important role in the development of high value added industry and services.

What policies are needed to improve the situation? What are the main objectives to be considered?

Objective 1: “to broaden access to broaden equity”. This refers to the objectives of expanding access to education across all levels; to ensure that access to education is the same in all regions of Azerbaijan, and guaranteeing that the quality of education provided will be of the same high standard in all regions of the country;

Objective 2: “to improve the quality of education”. This objective involves the enrichment of the learning environment, adapting the curriculum to meet the needs of Azerbaijani citizens and upgrading the skills and knowledge of the teaching staff. It also addresses current crises in public financing, public sector finance reforms, problems regarding corruption and needs to monitor it in the education system and if possible to minimize its sizes;

Objective 3: “to strengthen management skills in education.” This objective involves the provision of training in up-to-date management skills in all levels; decentralise the administrative procedures for effective education management. The assumption here is also that training will ensure that the education system as a whole will become more efficient.

How to achieve these objectives?
Regrettably Azerbaijan is confronted with such problem as corruption. Corruption in its education system is the disaster for the future of the whole nation. One of the most important and urgent actions to take is to reduce the size of corruption in the education. First of all we need to clarify the reason why do the teachers take bribes? For the last several years budgetary difficulties have led to many teachers being paid infrequently. As a result the incident and duration of teachers missing their work without any particular reasons have increased and this had bad consequences for education quality. It also has reduced the status of the teaching profession and deterred many of the most able of schools graduates from pursuing a teaching career. A flexible system of efficient teaching should be established. Methods and Solutions to the current teacher quality and quantity crisis:

- Increase remuneration. This is  possibly could be done by cost shifting in the education budget or a reduction in the overall size of the teaching force. Since the student/teacher ratio is as low as 11:1 (data from the Ministry of Education, 2000) this might be an appropriate way.
- Pay teachers - based on student gains and achievement from year to year.
- To guarantee teachers the authority they need to make decisions about their work. Job satisfaction can lead to higher performance.
-  Availability of proper teaching and learning materials
-  More concentration on in-service training
-  Public promotion of the invaluable contribution that teachers make to human development. The status of teachers should be increased. There should be stimulation to become a Teacher!
-  Refurbishment of schools

As mentioned above the salary of teachers should be increased as well as there should be an increase in the social payments (benefits and discounts for teachers in payments of utility services for example) higher pension, moderated system of trade unions of teachers and finally CORRECT distribution of funds/budget allocations. In Azerbaijan expenditure on education constitutes 23%(!) of the total budget of the Republic. This is very high percentage compared to other countries. Although the figure of the allocated sum is rather high, there is not an appropriate way of distribution. A detailed analysis of the education budget items should be considered for suggesting a feasible way for effective distribution of funds.

To renovate curriculum content and methods and the development of standards and tools for assessing pupils’ achievement by replacing oral exams with written exams (written exams will reduce the size of corruption and support objectives mentioned above, thus they will eliminate the teacher’s influence on assessment of students). Exams could be possibly marked without knowing the name of student (this is already in practice in one of the private Universities in Azerbaijan); introduction of new credit system (when annual pass is calculated by accumulating all credits received from subjects, taking into account attendance rate). It is important to recognise that the current curriculum includes a number of “unnecessary” subjects. Students should be given a right to choose from the pool of subjects, thus by having a core and optional courses.

There is a need to ensure that maximum levels of efficiency are attained in management of the education sector. This is not an objective that is easy to pursue, especially in the context of such system of public administration which is in existence in Azerbaijan. At present it is the Ministry of Education which has a control over decision-making and spreads it to almost all areas of operational management in planning, in policy formulation and monitoring and as a result usually there are long delays in decision-making, and difficulties in implementation of new programmes and services.  In short, decentralisation will be very appropriate in Azerbaijan since current centralised form of management is not efficient because when local communities do not initiate change, or at least participate in a dialogue with planners and policy makers they are unlikely to commit themselves enthusiastically to the implementation of change. Thus, it is proposed that for successful management of educational institutions it is important to grant them increasing autonomy. More administrative responsibility and authority should be given to the District Education Officers (RANO). Detailed studies need to be undertaken to design new organisational structures and processes. Such studies should determine the levels of authority and different kinds of decision-making should occur. It is crucially important that transparent accountability procedures be designed into new management system.