Experts in the education sphere insist that it is not a good idea to make any changes now in the current higher-education admission system after it has been tested and fine-tuned for two years. Also, adding entrance exams means extra strain on the applicants.
Can there be a civil society in Ukraine, considering that those in power seldom listen to what this society has to say? Take the current situation in the sphere of education. Have you witnessed a single response from the political leadership to the student protest events that have been held for a number of days? This protest addresses the new government, with regional councils sending letters to the prime minister, asking for dismissal of the newly appointed Education and Science Minister Dmytro Tabachnyk. All we have heard was Tabachnyk’s statement to the effect that he won’t resign his post, not even if students go on a hunger strike.
The appointment of such an odious, scandalous figure as minister of science and education will serve no good purpose. First, people should be placed at the head of ministries on a more rational basis (apparently their political views ought to be taken into account, too). Second, experts believe that education is not a sphere in which you can experiment and which you can supervise proceeding from your ambitions. Here one must reckon with public opinion and that of scientists and, of course, students and teachers. However, judging by the new minister’s stand, he isn’t going to do any of this.
Unfortunately, the minister’s figure obliterates the view of the innovations he and his associates intend to implement in the education system. About two months are left until the end of the academic year. High school graduates expect to enroll in higher educational establishments depending on the test results. At least, this is how it was before Volodymyr Semynozhenko, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of humanitarian affairs, announced that applicants will have to take entrance exams in universities and that their high-school grade point average will be a factor. Experts in the education sphere insist that it is not a good idea to make any changes now in the current higher-education admission system after it has been tested and fine-tuned for two years. Also, adding entrance exams means extra strain on the applicants. Well, the new government doesn’t give a hoot about any of this, including what the students and their parents have to say on the matter (almost 90 percent are for retaining external independent testing).
However, most people in the education sphere are outraged by the decision of the education and science ministry’s leadership that allows the applicants to take tests in the language of instruction of their high schools. If it isn’t an attack on the Ukrainian language, what is it? Another blow to the language may be delivered by Tabachnyk’s latest statement about high-school students and undergraduated being allowed to choose the language of instruction. And this with the new government being in power for just one month!
COMMENTS
Volodymyr KOVTUNETS, expert, External Testing Relief Program in Ukraine:
“Taking tests using the languages of ethnic minorities doesn’t make sense because children are already prepared to take these tests in a certain language. Another drawback is that children writing tests in a language of a national minority will find themselves on unequal terms with those writing tests in Ukrainian. The same question can have different shades of meaning in Ukrainian and Hungarian. Here everything depends on the translation. Such children aren’t prepared for enrollment in Ukrainian institutions of learning. This doesn’t apply to Russian-speaking school students, but to those who speak Hungarian and Romanian, and who live as compact and somewhat isolated communities, because they don’t know either Ukrainian or Russian well enough.
“Last but not least, the organizers of such tests will have to make quick translations and adjustments to the tests. This is another risk of leaking information because additional personnel will have to be involved and it will be difficult to keep the data confidential. Let me remind you that a court in the Russian Federation rejected the request of a high school graduate from Tatarstan who sought permission to take the uniform state exam in Tatar. The court explained that the decision served the claimant’s interest. If a student studies Russian throughout school, there will be no college enrollment obstacles, but if this student doesn’t know the terminology of a given subject in the official Russian language, he can’t show progress in college. And this in a federated state with a dozen local state languages! In Ukraine this approach is absolutely illogical, it is a disservice to children from ethnic minority communities.”
Serhii KVIT, rector, Kyiv Mohyla Academy:
“Focusing on entrance exams every year isn’t the main point, because it is more important to carry out education reforms. The objective of these reforms must be better quality, reduction of the quantity [of academic hours], and joining the Western system. Nothing is being done along these lines.
“The admission campaign and such issues as whether or not to take into account the grade point average and whether or not to practice entrance exams are secondary. Our biggest mistake is that we keep talking about external independent testing as a reform, yet this is just a tool which won’t work without reforms. Admission campaigns will be held this, next, and in the subsequent years, but what we have to figure out is how to improve our higher education. External testing is an important project and we support it, but we need reforms to carry it out. We have to honor our commitments with the regard to the Bologna Process by introducing the three-level system: B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. Every applicant must know English, because there is no Bologna Process and mobility as its basis without the command of a foreign language.
“Furthermore, reforms are needed in terms of the quality of study and instruction, along with university reform, so that our universities are primarily aimed at developing the sciences and conducting research, with the teaching process built around research. The key aspect of these reforms is the university’s financial, academic, manpower, and other kinds of autonomy. The state must help this process, for you can’t expect university lecturers to have their research papers published by international educational periodicals if a given university doesn’t have the required scientific basis and labs. There is vast room for reforms and we must carry them out.”
Lilia HRYNEVYCH, chairperson of the board of directors, Testing Technology and Education Quality Monitoring Center:
“It is too late to make any radical changes in the college admission procedures. Any additional tests will be an extra burden for the children. No entrance exams should have been introduced in the first place, for they would make the admission campaign nontransparent. With regard to the high-school grade point average, there is an admission regulation that an applicant’s progress in school is taken into account when summing up the points scored. The alarming aspect is that it is proposed to extrapolate this result to 200 points. In other words, one point in the high school diploma stands for 16 points scored in the course of testing. It is absolutely incorrect to compare the scale used for a high-school graduation certificate with the ratings of the tests. By adopting this method we will give a fresh impetus to the last-minute-point race. There are practically two months left until the end of the school year and this approach may well cause an unhealthy situation in school.
“We have carried out studies to determine how effective independent external testing is as a tool to gage the applicant/student’s future academic performance. We compared our findings with the number of points scored during the first series of examinations. The correlation coefficient turned out rather high, which means that EIS is an effective university admission tool. Our findings also show certain testing shortcomings that have to be corrected and upgraded. We have to consider taking measures now.
“We know that our higher education institutions complain about being unable to form their applicants’ visage. There is world experience with every such institution being able to form this visage and determine which subjects are taken into account and with which coefficients. For example, a technical college can adopt 0.5 as the Ukrainian language coefficient, compared to 1.0 for physics and mathematics. It is important for a college/university to work out regulations based on objective criteria and equally binding on all applicants.
“Our poll involved 24,000 respondents and showed that public confidence in external testing has tangibly increased in all categories. Among the young people who have experienced this testing, confidence in IES reaches 86 percent. Rather than returning to the past by reviving entrance exams as an addition, we should keep moving forward by developing and upgrading external testing and admission systems.”
