Need For Motivating Educational Technologies At Teaching Computer Science

Normative Funding

Hungarian schools before the regime change (1989) were characterized by strict discipline. The central, public funding was not dependent upon the number of students, and the currently experienced moral decay had not reached the students, thanks to the relatively closed system. Students did their best to stay in school, they worked hard and studied. Professionals having graduated from secondary or higher education were in possession of well-established knowledge if they were able to pass their final exams. Certificates and degrees had a value in the eyes of society.

The school funding system established after the regime change was based on the facts that although the type of service provided at schools or the salary given to teachers were ordered by the state, the education authorities – mostly the local governments – were responsible for all of them. Due to the varied income capacity of local governments, significant differences emerged owing to the expenses per student. Reductions between 2006 and 2010 led to several municipalities not being able to carry out their school-maintaining functions. Yet, school funding was not dependent upon the number of students. As a consequence, the school was not forced to keep its students at all costs. The school could still get rid of students that showed insufficient performance, or lack of interest in the profession, or that were unable to fit in without a problem. Consequently, students found it valuable to stay in school, and they spent time learning for it. Education was highly effective because students were interested in improving their grades. This time period and the preceding one were characterized by greater discipline and more effective education.

Since 2013, the previously normative funding was replaced by task funding (capitation scheme). It means that public educational institutions receive the salaries of pedagogues and school workers from the state. That is, all teachers get their salaries from the central budget from now on. Maintenance of buildings, acquiring educational equipment and other costs are covered by the educational authorities. Pedagogues' salaries are provided by the state in non-public schools as well – such as alternative, foundation or religious schools – but further funding is only available to those holding a public education agreement signed by the Education Minister.

Since 2013, the public educational authority is Klebelsberg Institution Maintenance Center (KLIK) under public education law, then vocational schools became parts of various vocational education centers. Management was carried out along with professional centralization. The role of the state became more dominant in appointment of school leaders, creation of framework curricula, control of pedagogues, regulation of content and distribution of textbooks. The aim of the government is unification, so that each child could possibly get the same conditions in every public school.

The byproduct of change is that the funding and the budget of schools are determined by the number of students. University majors, or even schools without enough students are abolished. The situation is the same in higher education, where less popular majors are not stable, as they get lower funding. More popular majors, like Computer Science has greater financial stability. So in both secondary and higher education, it is essential to keep a certain number of students. In less popular institutions it is done at all costs, even if the standard of education declines. Both students and parents are aware of this dilemma. The significance of good grades is devalued. They even know that minimal performance is enough to stay in an educational institution, since this is the guarantee of survival of the school. This is matched with the loss of moral values of the society open to the world, which makes the situation even more serious ( Kori, Pedaste, Leijen, & Tõnisson, 2016).

In a vocational school of computer science that we have researched, only 35% of students managed to take the final exam, then 11% obtained their certificate with success. What else is this if not the failure of education? The number of students in higher education has been decreasing since 2004. Forced enrollment caused quality deterioration. Students are less and less capable to meet the requirements (Fig. 2 .).

See Full Size >

The tendency is similar in higher education as well ( KSH, 2019). Increasing the number of students was forced, and it could not be continued after it had reached a certain level. More and more students with lower abilities get admitted, and they cannot perform well, even on continuously decreasing standards ( Kori et al., 2014). The drop-out rate is very significant on all IT majors (Fig. 3 .).

See Full Size >

The dropout rate is high, especially in the field of Computer Science ( Bellresearch, 2015). The average student dropout rate for computer science students in Europe is at around 19% ( Hüsing et al., 2013). In Hungary, the dropout rate in ICT studies is around 48%, which is much higher than the European average. Business-informatics and computer-engineering are 44 - 45% of the dropouts, while the worst is the software engineering is 60% ( Bellresearch, 2015). ICT students dropout is also an important problem in United States ( Talton, Peterson, Kamin, Israel, & Al-Muhtadi, 2006) and in Asia ( Weng, Cheong, & Cheong 2010). One factor that may influence dropout in all disciplines is learning motivation ( Kori et al., 2016; Rumberger, 2004; Vallerand & Bissonnette, 1992).

The interesting trend to aim for admission of as many students as possible without selection has emerged for the sake of the survival of the school. They should be kept in the institution for as long as possible. Yet, as they cannot even meet the requirements in spite of the myriad of concessions made for the sake of improving retention rates, and as the school has already received normative funding for them, they let them fail before or during the final exams as a loss.

Masses of Graduates

The average rate of higher education graduates was 39.1% in the European Union in 2016. This number has emerged after 10 years of continuous rise of 10%. However, the tendency is strongly slowing down, since it has only risen 0.5 percentage point last year.

The aim of the strategy Europe 2020 was that at least 40% of people aged 30-34 should have a degree in the European Union. Eighteen member states have reached or exceeded this strategic objective. However, a slight decrease can be observed in Hungary recently, since the rate of degree owners was 32.1% in 2014, but it was 30.2% in 2017 among people aged 25-34. To reach the goals, admission requirements needed to be reduced. Admission system has changed, and threshold scores could be set based on the range of student number to be admitted. Children with lower abilities get their G.E.D. in the first place. They appear in higher education, to where they can easily get admitted. Still, Computer Science majors are in a better situation, due to the high number of applicants and the high need for IT professionals, so the universities can afford to have a higher failure rate from a financial perspective, and it has grown significantly. In 2004, the number of enrolled students began to decline. They mostly graduated in 2007. Interestingly, the drop-out rate also started to decrease from 2007 (Fig. 4 .).

See Full Size >

Comparison of the preceding 3 graphs above shows an interesting connection ( KSH, 2019). The number of students in higher education started to decrease around 2004. Three years later, when most of them graduated from their Bachelor’s studies, the graduation rates started to increase. The less students are admitted to universities, the higher the graduation rates, and the higher the number of admissions, the lower number of students graduate successfully. So, in case of high admission rates, more students turn out not to belong there, and become drop-outs, while as a consequence of higher admission requirements, graduation rates improve.

It is an interesting situation that vocational schools of Information Technology has less students studying further than a general high school does. However, they study programming for years in vocational schools, and it would give them great advantage at universities, where this subject has the highest failure rate ( Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975; Hagan & Markham, 2000). Based on our own measurements at a vocational school of Information Technology, most of them do not even want to stay in this field, as they consider it too difficult, and only 30% of them would like to study further (Fig. 5 ).

See Full Size >

The vocational school of information technology has such high centrally defined standards, compared to the abilities of students, that if students reach them, they could fit in among undergraduate sophomores. And there is still another level of education between the two educational institutions: the so-called post-secondary vocational education, which is taught by universities, but only offers a certificate of graduation instead of a degree.

We had the students take the same test of Web-programming at the vocational school (software engineering training after high school) as the one at the university (Bachelor of Computer Engineering). Secondary school students had studied programming for one semester, and Web-programming for another. Undergraduate students had studied programming for 3 semesters, and Web-programming also for one. The difference was surprisingly low (Fig. 6 .).

See Full Size >

Secondary school students had results of 65% on average, while university students had 79%. The rate of results 90% or over was 30% at the secondary school, while it was 53% at the university. The age, and the gender rate was approximately the same. Considering that Bachelor’s is a two level higher education, we had expected greater difference.

So, the expectations centrally defined for vocational schools are disproportionately high, but it does not increase the students' knowledge. Yet, they show worse and worse performance every year, as a matter of fact. So, we consider the educational policy attempting to improve standards of education with continuously growing expectations a mistake.