Corruption due to external evaluation when entering a university no longer exists at all, it’s just “suspicion of corruption.”
Thus, almost 100,000 entrants did not pass the external evaluation. Therefore, the changes in the Conditions of Admission actually divided the applicants into those who took the tests and those who were exempted from this procedure. If this can be called equal conditions, then with equal success Ukrainian education can be called European. It is clear that no one will believe it.
In the same way, it is not worth believing that those who became students had equal conditions by submitting to the admission commissions the certificates of external assessment obtained in different years. There were tens of thousands of them in 2011. Experienced employees of admission commissions could not even dream of a situation where the entrant brought with the documents the results of the entrance exam, passed a few years ago and demanded to be credited in the current entrance campaign. But with the certificates obtained in previous years, this is no longer a nightmare, but a reality. Despite the fact that the tests were different in different years, the programs of external evaluation have changed, that such a practice contradicts the basic scientific postulates.
And can it be called a step towards the approval of the constitutional principle of equal access to higher education, accounting for the receipt of the so-called average score of the school certificate. This step in the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Education and Science of Education is called European. I would very much like to see a real European country, where by arithmetic addition the grades of the graduate are summed up (set on a criterion scale) and they are translated into a rating scale according to an extremely primitive and imperfect method. The lack of state educational standards, uniform assessment criteria, different educational institutions, different levels of requirements for students and a number of other objective and subjective factors suggest that such a step, both in terms of pedagogy and the science of educational dimensions, is nonsense … However, this norm has been in force for the second year in the introductory campaign. And today there is no doubt that this decision did not have a positive impact on the quality of the school, but to revive the hunt in it for good grades on the eve of graduation. There are both hunters and prey on this hunt. There is also a weapon that works flawlessly and confidently – a bribe.
This is evidenced by a study conducted by specialists of the Center for Test Technologies and Monitoring the Quality of Education. Its results show that the number of so-called “medalists” in 2011 increased significantly. If according to the results of 2008/09 4.7% of students awarded gold and silver medals (to the total number of graduates) graduated from Ukrainian schools, according to the results of 2010/11. they became 7.5%. In particular, in the Chernivtsi region the increase was 8.2%, in Sevastopol – 4.7%, Ternopil – 4.3%, Kiev – 4%. So the ranks of medalists are growing, and those who knew the Pythagorean theorem on testing are not. It is clear that an ordinary Ukrainian has an elementary question: “And why external evaluation? It is better to buy a good average score of the certificate?”
A huge aspen stake is buy a comparison essay online hammered into the back of VNO
The introduction of benefits for entrants who studied in the preparatory departments of higher education institutions, paying a decent amount for it (think of equal conditions of access to higher education), added a kind of bonus to the discrediting of the external assessment system. Also, the magnitude of this advantage is estimated at 20 points. Recall that to obtain an additional twenty points on the external evaluation it is necessary to answer 15-20 questions, that is, to show knowledge. But why study, repeat the program material, worry, passing tests, when you can enroll in courses, pay money, somehow pass the exam there and get the same 20 points.
By the way, there is another aspect of this problem. The bonus incentive for applicants to enter the preparatory courses would obviously have the effect of significantly improving their level of knowledge, as the results of the external evaluation would show. But this did not happen. The results of the external assessment, as in the previous year, show a low level of knowledge of future students, despite the preparatory courses, taking into account the average score of the certificate and even reducing the overall level of complexity tests of used in 2011 . So what have they achieved with such, let me say, “reforms”. Nothing but a decrease in the level of public confidence in external evaluation, which obviously affected the result obtained during the poll discussed above. Yes, actually, such a task was set.
There is also no doubt that the formation of a negative attitude towards external evaluation was facilitated by the problems that arose during the testing in 2011. But this topic deserves a separate comment.
Let’s return to the results of a survey conducted by the “ResearchBrandingGroup” campaign. We can trust them or not. But they showed a rather symptomatic fact: the appearance of such results at least means that the attack on the external evaluation system, which began in 2010, has entered a new phase. In the back of the system, recognized as successful by domestic and foreign experts, a huge aspen stake is hammered. And this blow is not the last. We will tell about the following in more detail. There is no doubt that they will be.
Author: Igor Likarchuk, director of the Center for Test Technologies and Monitoring the Quality of Education.
UNIAN 17.08.2011
In just five years, the Ukrainian Center for Educational Quality Assessment has managed to root in our society several mythical fables about its activities (Ukr.) |
Fables about external evaluation
In order not to be accused of testophobia or prejudice against the very fact of the need to have an evaluation center at the state level, I want to state my principled position. I am an ardent supporter of external evaluation of school graduates in order to establish the real level of education of students and the possibility of their further education in higher education. I have always believed that I stand by it and do not plan to change my opinion in the future that the test form of assessment of academic achievement is the most effective, objective and scientifically sound.
At the same time, I consider it necessary to say, prove and convince: the methodology and organization of external independent evaluation, which has developed today at the national level, and is so persistently advocated by the Ukrainian Center for Educational Quality Assessment (UCEQ) , need significant qualitative changes.
Stubborn non-recognition of considerable miscalculations, concealment of the true results of external evaluation of graduates of Ukrainian schools, and most importantly – the lack of a clear vision of their future development are justified by several fables that are spread by the UTSOYAO in society.
A fable about how the External Evaluation eradicated corruption
Five years ago, introducing independent assessment and combining the final exams of eleventh-graders at school with university entrants, ordinary citizens began to impose the following opinion: here comes the external evaluation and abolish corruption: both in schools with high school diplomas and in higher education institutions with admission “on the counter”.
Then both ministers and deputies began, so to speak, not in full voice, but to clarify: the main goal of the EIT is not anti-corruption. The media continued to expose university bribe-takers, and the Ministry of Education repeatedly confirmed the facts of bribery when entering universities, but the fable about the anti-corruption of independent testing has become so popular that society no longer accepts the idea of returning exams for entrants.
And UTSOYAO stubbornly continues to question the fable about the fight against corruption. Here is the direct speech of the director of the Center I. Zaitseva in the official publication of the Ministry of Education and Science, Youth and Sports of Ukraine – the newspaper “Education of Ukraine”: “… one of its indisputable advantages is much less than traditional exams, suspicions of corruption. ” How beautifully laid out! All! Corruption due to external evaluation when entering a university no longer exists at all, it’s just “suspicion of corruption.”
Fairy tales are only alive when they are needed by both those who tell and those who are told. Why are they for Ms. Zaitseva? Of course, in order to prove that the Ukrainian center is at such a height that it does not need improvement at all. And students-graduates and their parents are warmed by such a thought: “everything is honest” there and they get to the university according to the level of knowledge, and not according to the amount of money in their wallets.
Most parents and entrants themselves would be very upset to learn that corrupt university admission schemes have not only failed in the summer, but, in my opinion, have successfully adapted to external evaluation and testing with certificates.
In my opinion, the field of activity in this area is too wide. “Suspicions of corruption” provoke additional sessions, and left benefits and preferences for certain categories of applicants, and medical and other certificates, and the opportunity to write off during testing to those who “need” and previously known “necessary” graduates answers, and additional exams in some universities, which solve everything, and there is a possibility of direct intervention in the test results.
And all this is reliably covered by the thesis that everything is “computerized” and the antithesis that computers are controlled by real people with real “needs” is silenced. In any case, until now, those who “need” enter higher education institutions.
Over the past year, the level of corruption in Ukraine, according to international experts, has increased significantly, and the 162nd place in our country is explained by a certain contribution of bribery in enrolling entrants to higher education. For the average citizen, the indisputable fact of overcoming corruption when entering a university will be the situation when students of the Institute of International Relations in Kyiv will come to study by minibus, and to technical universities – in Mercedes.
The fable that the best are selected in universities
This year seemed significant for spreading rumors that only talented people come to higher education institutions in Ukraine.