Ihor LYKARCHUK: “The Results of External Independent Testing didn’t confirm Claims of Poor Training in our Secondary Schools.”

External independent testing (EIT) of this year’s secondary school graduates is finished. June 5th was the last day of additional testing. However, receiving a certificate is half the work in this case. All the troubles are yet to come as it is not clear how the entrance examination committees of higher educational institutions will perceive these certificates.

We asked the director of the Ukrainian centre for evaluation of the quality of education (UCEQE), Ihor LYKAKRCHUK, to comment on the results of the 2008 EIT.

“My present opinion about the results of the 2008 EIT is based on emotions – a detailed analysis will be presented later,” said Ihor Leonidovych. “My first conclusion is that despite resistance on the part of the leadership of different educational institutions and parents as well as political insinuations, the external independent testing took place. And this is very important for the future of Ukraine. We proved that it is possible to succeed by consolidating the efforts of different structures, working out a clear procedure and employing a sufficient number of specialists to carry out the task.

“My second conclusion is that the results of the EIT didn’t confirm claims of poor training in our secondary schools. Only 8 to 9% of graduates failed the tests; only 5% of the students failed the tests in mathematics. Half of the students showed a higher-than-average result. The percentage of children who received excellent results was higher than we had expected. My long-standing belief proved to be true: it is good when there are expensive computers and furniture in schools, but it is more important when the teachers are able to teach and the students are eager to learn. It is the combination of these two factors that leads to positive results.

“The third conclusion is that despite the forecasts of some experts, the difference between the EIT results of the students from the villages and the students from the cities was insignificant. There certainly was a difference, but it wasn’t critical enough to make it a national tragedy. I have always said that village schools have latent potential. I know that there were schools, mostly village schools, the students of which didn’t take part in the testing. They just didn’t want to. However, those village schools’ students that took part in the testing showed results which were not worse than the results of the students from cities and towns.

“One more thing. The leadership of institutions of higher learning worried that they wouldn’t be able to form classes. Some publications wrote: rectors of technical universities are worried that with the EIT certificates, there will be fewer students wishing to enter their institutions than was planned. You know this is very strange: entrants are admitted to the universities according to some plan when, actually, only the students that really want to receive higher education should be admitted to higher educational institutions. This is degradation of our education. I would like to note that only 9% or 40 thousand school graduates who were tested didn't pass tests in Ukrainian language. Thus, it will be possible to form classes in the universities and colleges according to their “plans.” However, are institutes of higher learningready to conduct an entrance examination campaign honestly? According to our sources of information, the procedure of admission of entrants to many universities and colleges is not always transparent and honest.

And the last conclusion is that the system of external independent testing should be improved. From August 1^st, we are starting to prepare for the 2009 EIT.”

— Are there statistics about graduates of previous years: what were the results of their external independent testing?

— We are not interested in these statistics. They tried to persuade us to abolish the testing for those that want to enter university extensions or to offer them and recent years’ school graduates a reductive version of testing. However, what about equal terms for everybody in receiving a higher education? The journalists asked us recently: how many people older than 60 were tested? We are not interested in this! We are not interested in whether somebody is a mother or a father; we don’t care about their income or their place of residence; we don’t care whether they have MP’s or Cabinet of Ministers ID’s. We are interested only in the results of their testing. These are equal terms of admission to institutions of higher learning.

— What aspects of EIT caused the most questions?

— I think there always will be some questions. Sometimes it looks like people are waiting for special explanations or maybe even for somebody to come and do everything for them. There were several young people that registered for the testing but didn’t come to receive their invitations. They said: "Why didn't you bring them to us?" However, everybody was told to come over and pick up those invitations. I have just received a call from Kharkov: about 3 thousand certificates haven’t been picked up by school graduates. Are they also waiting for some special invitation? There were some participants of the EIT that came to registration centers without passports or with pens with blue or green ink. We said: “It was clearly written down in the invitations." “We didn’t read them,” they answered.

Another example: A young girl from Dniepropetrovsk wrote us a letter in which she said that there were mistakes in the tests in Ukrainian language and literature. And our specialists said that her letter was written with a considerable number of mistakes. We explained that she couldn’t have found mistakes in the tests since there weren’t any mistakes there, but we were disappointed that she had made so many mistakes in her letter to us. If you could see the irate letter her father sent us afterwards!

Our society certainly should have some time to adapt to this system of testing. At the present moment, we have 700 appeals, and, considering the total number of tested students, this is a very small number. If there were even 7 thousand appeals we would review them all and give our answer. If needed, we will let other specialists check questionable tests. I don’t think that the results would be much different.

— What will be changed in the system of EIT next year?

— We would like to reduce the number of subjects tested. And this will possible to do only after the entrance exams to the higher educational institutions are unified. We would also like to change the period of time when the EIT should be held, and it will be necessary to review the term of the school year for this. We want to involve as many university workers as possible in the process of the 2009 EIT. Thus, it will be necessary to review the regulations on the work of insitutes of higher learning for this. It is clear that the 2009 EIT will include tests in foreign languages. This is not easy, but we are getting ready for this. There are many such questions today. We are hoping that the Minister of Education and Science will sign a decree defining the 2009 EIT in the next several weeks.

— Should UCEQE separate from the Ministry of Education and Science next year?

— I can’t say that there is a substantial dependence of UCEQE on the Ministry. We depend on the Ministry in two matters: financial matters and organizational matters connected with the bodies that regulate education and higher educational institutions. None of the Ministry workers influenced the content of the tests, dictated how to conduct the testing or counted the results. The Ministry of Education and Science approved the program and that was all. During the EIT, the Minister visited the testing centers as a public observer. He didn’t intrude in the process and didn’t even enter the lecture halls. He just wanted to make sure that everything was going on according to the plan… Actually, I don’t support the idea of separating UCEQE from the Ministry. If our work next year is organized the same way as this year, I don’t see any need to talk about separating UCEQE.

— According to Mr. Algirdas Zabulionis’s interview to ZN, the result of the testing is just information that higher educational institutions should take into consideration. However, nothing is said that the universities should admit only the entrants with the best results. In fact, institutes of higher learning are able to admit anybody who brings the certificate...

— This is a complicated question. According to the terms of admission, institutes of higher learning are prohibited to hold entrance exams. However, many of them held so-called Olympiads and promised that entrants would be admitted on the basis of the results of these Olympiads. A long-standing story with access courses is another example. In my opinion, access courses are a concealed form of paying money for entering the university. People write us letters complaining about what the entrance examination committees say: “If you don’t take the access course and don’t pay money for this, you don’t have the chance to enter our university.”

The Ministry of Education and Science is preparing a number of measures to conduct the upcoming entrance examination campaign in compliance with the terms of admission. In my opinion, transparent and fair admission can be provided by three factors: first, a single procedure of admission according to the EIT results only. Second, this procedure should be absolutely transparent. If there are ten entrants with the same scores in the certificate, each of them should know why one of them is admitted and the other is not. Third, every entrant has the right to dispute the results of admission examination campaign in accordance with his or her scores in the certificate.

— Let's imagine the following situation: two university entrants are applying to a physical science department. One of them is absolutely sure that he or she wants to be a physicist; he or she studied physics profoundly in school but is not so good in Ukrainian language. The second university entrant is an A-student and doesn’t care what higher educational institution he or she enters; his or her test’s results in physics are the same as of the former one, but Ukrainian is better. Thus, the latter student will be admitted to the university in this situation. Isn't admission to institutes of higher learning according to the EIT certificates too mechanical?

— I think that only the results of the EIT should be taken into consideration. If we start to include some additional competitions and interviews, which the higher educational institutions are interested in, we can give up on the idea of EIT. Why do education evaluation centers (such as ours) in many countries of the world give appointments to concrete (according to the choice of the entrant) institutes of higher learning? Because they have understood that it is better to provide equal access to higher education to everybody rather than start a professional selection, which is actually somewhat different.

In fact, a combination of excellent grades in all subjects (languages, history and mathematics with physics) occurs very seldom. The testing shows some definite skills and gifts of the school graduates. And every higher educational institution should define its priority subjects and consider the results in these subjects.

— However, creative competitions are still being conducted. And some higher educational institutions are going to hold their own tests despite the EIT. Doesn’t this contradict the terms of admission?

— Let’s wait until the entrance examination campaign starts. Unfortunately, we’re talking about unconfirmed facts today. My opinion is that this year’s entrance examination campaign to institutes of higher learning will be different.