High School Education during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The coronavirus infection originated in Wuhan, China, and soon spread around the world. The declared COVID-19 pandemic has affected al­most all aspects of modern society. This paper examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on secondary education and student achievement in the state graduation exam. Secondary education of the students in Croa­tia has adapted to the new situation with the school closure, online teach­ing and with the adaptation of teaching methods. The purpose of the state graduation exam is to assess and evaluate the achieved knowledge and competences, acquired by education in accordance with general education teaching plans and programmes. For this reason, in this research, an anal­ysis of student performance in the state graduation exam was conducted. The results of the exam of the compulsory part of the state graduation exam in the summer exam period from the school year 2012/2013 until 2020/2021 were observed. In this paper, the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on sec­ondary education was examined from several different aspects. According to the analyzed indicators, the results showed that there is no significant de­cline in the successful adoption of teaching materials, i.e. there is no reduc­tion in the number of students who successfully passed the state graduation exam. Furthermore, the share of students who passed the state graduation exam within sufficient grades was analyzed, and the results showed that there is no major decline. Lastly, the share of students who passed the state graduation exam and enrolled in some form of higher education was ana­lyzed. The results showed that the number of students who enrolled in some of the study programs of higher education institutions did not decrease.