Development of Afterschool Education System in Latvia: Possible Ways for Quality

Assurance in Nowadays Situation

Daiga Kalnina, assistant professor, University of Latvia, Faculty of Pedagogy, Psychology

and Art

Charasteristics of Afterschool Education System

• Interest-related education – realisation of the individual educational needs and desires of a person regardless of age and previously acquired education

• Professional orientation education – the acquisition of systematised knowledge and skills, as well as the formation of values orientation in art, culture or sport concurrently with the basic education or secondary education level, which provides a possibility to prepare for the acquisition of a professional education in the selected direction.

Borders of research: Interest-related education

• For 2 – 25 years old children and youth.

• Sponsored by government, local municipalities and parents.

• Realised by schools, afterschool education centers.

• Child have an opportunity to freely choose and acquire several interest-related education programmes.

Meta-theoretical Framework of Research

• System theory in career development as integrative person-in-context model in career development (Patton, McMahon, 2006),

• Experiental learning theory (Kolb, 1984).

Theoretical background of research

• Understanding of non-formal education (Clarijs, 2008), • Afterschool education and its historical development

(Skatkins, 1985; Šibajevs, 2002; Law of Education, 1999),• Understanding about career development as lifelong

self-construction (Super, 1956, 1980; Havighurst, 1972),• Understanding about development of generic

employability skills (CDELL, 2007; Johnson, Sawicki, Pearson, Lindsay, McQuaid, Dutton, 2009; Lowden, Hall, Elliot, Lewin, 2011; CBI, 2011; Pegg, Waldock, Hendy-Isaac, Lawton, 2012).

MethodologyWhat society expect from

afterschool education system? Discourse analyze

How afterschool education impact on skills and career

development?

What are the possible ways for quality assurance of

development of afterschool education system in Latvia in

nowadays situation?

Analyze of literature Questionnaire

Expert discussions

In-depth interviews

Main discourses1. Afterschool education system must be without any

changes, the main potential of it is to keep traditions for national traditions of singing and dancing.

2. Afterschool education must be changed to use money effectively to compensate disadvantages of formal education like skills necessary for career.

3. Afterschool education system is necessary as way and place to spend time safely between school lessons and end of working day of parents.

Research base• 308 randomly selected respondents:

– from different age groups from 16 to 67 years old (16-25: 22.3%, 26-35: 22.7%, 36-45g: 24.6%, 46-55:18.8%, 56 and older: 11.3%),

– with different education level ( basic 7.1%, secondary 8.7%, professional 5.5%, higher 78%),

– with different study destination (country school 20.4%, small town school 30.7%, Riga 30.7%, other city school 17.8%).

• All respondents during school time participated at least in one afterschool educational program.

Development of generic employability skills

Self-direction

Team-working

Understanding about business

Problem-solving

Communication, reading, writing

Calculating

Use of IT Initiative and enterprising

More in interest- related education

38,8 46,6 11 28,8 11,7 5,8 8,4 39,5

More in school lessons

21 17,8 28,8 27,5 65 74,8 41,1 12,9

More in school life

17,2 20,7 12,9 21,7 9,4 4,9 10,4 22

Impossible to evaluate

22,7 14,6 46,9 21,7 13,6 14,2 39,8 25,2

Development of personality characteristics

Development of generic employability skills to achieve goal

Main findings

1. Afterschool education system helps to develop career management skills and personal charasteristics important for successful career like self-awareness, problem solving skills, time management, motivation, team-work and give the opportunity to experiment with different kinds of jobs to understand what is/is not suitable for individual.

2. 97% of respondents agree that there must be state funded system of afterschool education in Latvia as it works as compensative mechanism of lacks of formal education system and gives the opportunity to try different professions to understand what kind of job person want and can to do.

Results from interviews • All interviewed respondents participated in some

interest-related programms in the same time.• They emphasize that all these programms worked as

complex system for them (different content, but organizational forms and methods allowed to acheive the result: comprehensively developed personality with extra skills).

• Teacher as personality is important.• All respondents remember interest-related programms

as something nice and want to participate again.

Problems of Interest-related Education System

• It is not possible to ensure an equal offer in all administrative territories.

• There are not clear public procurement for content and methods of interest-reated programmes.

• Definition of interest-related education in education Law is too wide and unconcrete that allows to interpret it in different ways.

Main recommendations• Latvia must keep the afterschool education system,

but make changes in regulations about content of interest-related programmes to achieve learning outcomes that are oriented on development of career management skills.

• The clear system of payment is necessary to ensure equal opportunities for all children and to ask for quality.

• Clear and concrete definition is neccessary for interest-related education including aim of interest-related education.