QUALITY OF THE SECONDARY SCHOOL EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT: A COMPARATIVE STUDY USING THE SACERS RATING SCALE

Abstract

The quality of education is the main priority in most states’ policy, and Russia is no exception. Russia pays much attention to the accessibility of quality education for all citizens regardless of their place of residence and social status. The quality of education is considered a complex characteristic of educational activity and students’ training. We will consider it within the framework of this article in the context of the assessment and development of the school educational environment. The quality of the educational environment is provided by the following factors: content components relating to the interaction between participants of an educational relationship; organization of the educational process; conditions for professional staff growth and comfortable environment for exceptional children. The study using the SACERS rating scale revealed that schools in different districts of the metropolitan area differ in terms of providing students with equal conditions in their educational environment. The most significant differences were revealed in the following components of the educational environment: the creation of organizational conditions for extracurricular activities and additional education; interior solutions to ensure privacy, the comfort of communication, and motor activity; conditions for the learning and development of students with special educational needs. The study showed that schools with a higher quality index of the educational environment have quite homogeneous educational conditions. They provide relatively equal access to quality education compared to a group of structural units with a lower quality index. The differences in the compared educational organizations specifying the heterogeneity of educational conditions are related to characteristics such as the variability or uniformity in the use of resources, resource availability or its active use, whether it is a systematic or fragmented working process, and the focus on control norms or development.