These days university entrants are actively preparing for tests: the external independent testing will be held in Ukraine from May 15 to June 7. According to the information from the Ministry of Education, Science, Youth, and Sports, in 2012 the number of school leavers and those who are graduating from vocational schools willing to enter a university will rise by 130,000 as compared to the last year and will make about 400,000 people. This year’s innovation will be the equipment installed at some test points aimed at detecting cell phones and other reading devices in entrants’ pockets and bags: electronic frames the participants of the external independent testing will have to go through.
“There are nearly 700 points for the external independent testing in nine regions of Ukraine and 20 percent of them have already been equipped with video cameras or have agreements to use the electronic frames for the period of testing. In some regions there have been created mobile brigades that will be able to come to testing points with their equipment,” director of the Ukrainian Center for Education Quality Assessment Iryna Zaitseva told The Day.
According to her, if an external independent testing participant is noticed using a mobile phone or even a calculator their work will be annulled. Kyiv will be provided with the “tightest” video surveillance and magnet-electronic equipment.
The state order has not been approved yet, but, according to the representatives of the Ministry of Education, all the information has been processed, the project is ready and waiting to be approved by the Ministry of Economy and Ministry of Finance. According to the information from the Department for Higher Education at the Ministry of Education, they have collected the suggestions form all the universities and nothing has significantly changed since the last year: the state order will be roughly the same as it was last year. Besides, every institution of higher education had to agree its suggestions with the local authorities.
“The state order this year will be about 127,000 specialists. We have paid a lot of attention to the technical, natural, and mathematical directions; we have also ordered 23 percent more IT-technologists with 12 majors. Just like last year we are decreasing the order of economists, managers, and lawyers,” deputy director of the Department for Higher Education at the Ministry of Education Mykola Fomenko said. “Another important issue is providing the possibility to apply for the external independent testing sending the documents in the electronic form. Considering the problems of the last year (mainly, the Internet connection and confirmation) this year we are better technologically prepared due to the support of the company Microsoft. Last year universities received 869,000 applications, 400,000 of them in the electronic form. This is what the entrants and their parents trust. We hope that more entrants will use this opportunity this year.”
The experts emphasize that 20 percent of those who want to become students are people who already have a higher education. The university such people want to enter have to decide whether they have to participate in the external independent testing or not (for example, if someone has the higher humanitarian education and needs to get a technical education, they will have to be tested).
According to the officials and public representatives, hot line which is supposed to start working on July 2 when the entrants start applying for full-time studies will help to reduce or even eliminate corruption (1,700 people used it last year). Also, situation rooms will operate at the regional departments. The experts emphasize that all the information about the entrance campaign can be found at the official website of the Ministry of Education and portals osvita.net, vstup.info and testportal.gov.ua.
