Students in Kyrgyzstan are more familiar with closed-type tests but struggle with expressing their thoughts, as reported today at a press conference by the director of the National Center for Educational Quality Assessment and Information Technologies (NCEQAIT), Baktygul Shamshidinova.
According to Shamshidinova, the NCEQAIT is responsible for conducting both pilot and main PISA studies. Over 2,500 test tasks in Russian and Kyrgyz languages have been developed for the 2022/23 academic year. To ensure their reliability and validity, monitoring was carried out in approximately 50 schools in Bishkek and the Sokuluk district of the Chui region. A psychometric analysis was conducted, and starting from the 2023/24 academic year, students and teachers will have access to these tests on the ncokoit.kg website.
Shamshidinova highlighted that the tests cover grades 5 to 8 in all subjects that will be in PISA-2025. These PISA-oriented tests were developed by teachers from Kyrgyzstan and underwent external and internal evaluations to match national standards. Since 2009, when standards and functional literacy modules changed, significant work has been done in schools.
Recently, a "mini PISA" was conducted where students in 7th and 8th grades from around 245 schools took PISA-oriented tests in electronic format. The results are currently being processed. While students are familiar with closed-type tests where they choose one correct answer, PISA tests include various types such as sequencing, matching, closed-type, and student-generated responses. This poses a challenge as students struggle to write their thoughts independently.
PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) is an international program that assesses students' educational achievements. It is expected that around 100 countries will participate in the 2025 PISA study. Kyrgyzstan has participated twice before, in 2006 and 2009, ranking last both times.
