The Agency for Preschool, Primary and Secondary Education (APOSO) published on Wednesday the results and recommendations of the international TIMSS 2023 survey for Bosnia and Herzegovina, which show that the achievements of students from BiH are below the international average.
The survey was conducted in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2023 on a sample of 3,391 fourth-grade students from 120 primary schools, and similar to previous surveys, the results this time also show that the achievements of students from BiH are below the international average, APOSO announced.
4th-grade students in BiH achieved 447 points on the mathematics test and 448 points on the natural sciences test.
The achievement achieved on both tests positions BiH below the TIMSS scale average, which is 503 points for mathematics and 494 points for natural sciences, and the difference compared to the average is statistically significant.
In BiH, girls achieve better average achievements in natural sciences than boys and the difference in achievements is statistically significant, while at the international level, girls achieve better average achievements in natural sciences than boys, but the difference is not statistically significant.
Boys in BiH achieve better average achievements in mathematics, but the difference is not statistically significant, while at the international level, boys achieve better average achievements in mathematics and the difference is statistically significant.
The results of TIMSS 2023 again showed that only one percent of students in Bosnia and Herzegovina, or every hundredth, achieved a result in the advanced reference value in mathematics, while zero percent of students reached the advanced reference value in natural sciences.
Students from all surrounding countries achieve better achievements in mathematics – Kosovo 451, North Macedonia 474, Montenegro 477, with the fact that students from Albania 512, Slovenia 514 and Serbia 523 are above the TIMSS scale average.
The students of Bosnia and Herzegovina achieve slightly better average achievements in natural sciences than the students of the previously listed countries, with the exception of Serbia 510 and Slovenia 526 whose students achieve results above the average of the TIMSS scale in natural sciences as well.
As in the previous cycles of the TIMSS research, the best achievements in mathematics and natural sciences were achieved by the countries of the Far East. Students from Singapore score as many as 615 points on the mathematics test, and 607 points on the science test.
The TIMSS 2023 research provides an opportunity for a deeper insight into the achievement levels of our students, as well as into the contextual frameworks that influence these achievements – from students’ attitudes towards learning, through the support of the home environment, to the available resources and the quality of the teaching process in schools.
It is important to note that the TIMSS 2023 survey was conducted without the participation of Republika Srpska and West Herzegovina County, which is why the results of our students were not recorded in international trends. Only those competent educational authorities whose students participated in the last two cycles of the TIMSS survey will be able to monitor the trend.
The results and recommendations of the research will, as before, be distributed to all levels of educational authorities in the country in order to take concrete steps to improve the quality of education and accelerate curriculum reform.
Only by adapting educational systems to functional knowledge, skills and competences, by monitoring student achievement trends on a global level – can we enable our children not to lag behind their peers in other countries and to be competent on the labor market.
TIMSS is an international survey of trends in the knowledge of mathematics and natural sciences, which provides data on student achievements in the mentioned areas, as well as the elements that influence them.
Students from Bosnia and Herzegovina participate in this research for the third time, although not continuously. For the first time, in 2007, eighth-grade elementary school students participated in the research, and the results they achieved were below the international average. For the second time, in 2019, fourth-grade elementary school students participated in the research, and the results showed that 24 percent of the tested students could not reach even a low level of achievement in the field of mathematics, and that only one percent of students, or every hundredth, achieved a result in the advanced reference value in mathematics and natural sciences.
