School failure in Serbia

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to enrich the policy discourse in Serbia on one of the most striking features of primary and secondary education: the high proportion of students who are failing in many different ways. The findings are mainly based on international comparative analysis that leads to the distinction among three European equity patterns: compensative education systems that are characterized by a high level of equity (low impact of background, weak selection) and high quality (above average student performance), selective education systems, in which low level of equity and high selection results in a below average overall student performance and attritive education systems (to which Serbia belongs together with most South-East European countries) that are characterized by high inequities and relatively poor average quality that at the same time results in a high proportion of failing students both in terms of participation and learning outcomes. The paper attempts to orient further empirical educational research by formulating assumptions about the underlying reasons of school failure and provides an analysis of the educational policy implications within the specific Serbian context. .