External testing in Ukraine

External testing has been discussed on an unprecedented scale during the past couple of weeks. On the one hand, young people will soon take their college/university entrance exams. On the other hand, there are changes and innovations suggested by the new Ministry of Education and Science’s leadership. They have caused heated debates involving scholars, schoolteachers, college/university lecturers, graduates, and their parents.

Will the external testing procedures remain? What will be their language? Will the additional higher school entrance exams be instituted, allowing for the high school diploma’s grade point average? All these issues are high on the public agenda, and it seems that it would be to take heed of public opinion, including polls involving respondents who had taken such tests. As it is, the Democratic Initiatives Foundation and Kyiv’s International Institute of Social Studies carried out polls involving 1,200 respondents. Their findings show that 52 percent Ukrainians believe that independent external testing is far better than the usual college/university entrance exams (the latter are supported by 25 percent respondents).

Says Iryna Bekeshkina, Democratic Initiatives’ research coordinator: “Some are calling into question the very idea of external testing, so in a situation like this one public opinion is very important. Our polls show that most Ukrainians believe that external independent testing is better than standard entrance exams. We eventually found out that the children who took such tests — and other children, according to their parents’ accounts — were supportive of this testing system, compared to those who had a vague idea or relied on hearsay. We can sum up our respondents’ statements — including those who took such tests and who didn’t — as follows:

Fifty percent of the respondents believe that such independent external testing places all applicants on equal footing; 48 percent believe that this allows college enrolment for the gifted children; 43 percent believe that this helps eliminate admission board corruption; 40 percent believe that this system is a step forward, in the direction of true law and order.

Bekeshkina says there are other factors in addition to personal experience, including age groups. Thus, young and middle-aged people show the most positive attitude, while people over 55 years of age are expressly opposed to independent external testing. There is also the regional factor. The polls show that most people in western Ukraine are in favor of IET (55 percent, compared to 19 percent favoring conventional entrance exams). In the central region, this ratio is 39 percent to 28 percent; in the eastern and southern regions, it is 44 percent to 34 percent. The Donbas and the Crimea are the only exceptions, with 35 percent and 45 percent respondents supporting the new and old systems, respectively.

“We know that one of the tasks of this external testing system is to lower the level of corruption in the sphere of education,” says Bekeshkina, “and our polls show that most Ukrainians believe that canceling such tests will further corruption. We asked our respondents about corruption levels when using various knowledge assessment techniques. Sixty-eight percent stated that [conventional] college/university entrance exams — something the new government is trying to reinstate — would serve as a fresh impetus to this corruption. Forty-three percent of respondents commented on high school graduation corruption. Only one-third of the respondents claimed corruption was present in the course of independent external testing. In other words, IET appears to be the least corruption-infested testing system to date. I might as well point out that seventy percent of those who underwent IET believe that the procedures are fair enough. I ask myself: Is there anything else in Ukraine to cause such favorable public response? I believe that the new government should take this into consideration.

Furthermore, public opinion concerning the additional higher school entrance exams. Almost one-third of our respondents feel sure that these exams will serve to feather the examination board’s nests; one-quarter believe this will allow our colleges and universities to admit better-quality students; the rest of the respondents weren’t sure. Although the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (MON) postponed these additional entrance exams until the next year, experts believe that they will form the biggest problem during the next college/university enrolment campaign.

“We have publicly monitored the previous two enrolment campaigns,” says Olha Aivazovska, chairperson of the board, non-profit organization Opora, “and noted the presence of a problem during entrance exams for enrolment in creative faculties. The applicants took these exams in addition to the [external independent] tests. These exams, however, proved markedly biased, and the same was true of other exams.”

Sociologists believe that any innovative projects in the sphere of education should be approved by public opinion in the first place.