The admission to the higher educational institutions is the popular task for thousands of young Ukrainians. Nowadays, when most people are concerned with summer vacations, the graduates stand for their right of equal possibilities of education and the cherished student ID card. Beginning from 2008, the experimental system of external independent testing turned from the deans’ nightmares to the definite reality, and the admission campaign started to be controlled by the vast community. As a result, the people’s credibility in the testing grew and the bribes in the admission committee became illusive.
Each year brought new system failures frequently discussed in the society. Consequently, something became better than it was. For instance, it was finally admitted that the number of the graduate privileged persons will be not more than 25% hence they used their rights excessively and sometimes took up to 100% of the state budget places in the upmarket universities. The number of the privileged didn’t look ominous but in the years 2008-2009 there were some cases when the universities had to make the contest between the privileged for they were more numerous than the state budget places in the university.
The last year’s admission will be remembered for the incredible queues connected with the cutting of the terms of the documents’ reception and for the admittance procedure violation. If the first problem was easy to handle – simply by extending the terms – the second one wasn’t officially recognized till this year. Nevertheless, none of the deans who let the low-score graduates pass, was punished.
One minor detail that nobody noticed lead to the case when the gifted children lost their chance to be admitted to their favorite universities. The list of the admitted is proclaimed on August, 1st, and each graduate has 5 days to bring the originals of the documents to be accepted.
The most talented children can participate in the admission contest to several universities. Ones with the high average testing score were in the admission lists in many universities with high probability. So, after making his mind, the graduate leaves the place in other universities. This place is for the next graduate in the list. But, on the contrary, the rating update was purely barbarian – the vacant places were for those who knew about it and brought the document originals faster. Alas, the scores of the “fast” were not as high, and this is the proof of certain violations.
2011 admission campaign, as the previous ones, has its own peculiarities, for instance, the delay with the checking of the test works, the lessening of the state budget places, the implementation of the system “Electronic admission-2011’, the new category of the graduates with the possibility to be admitted without passing the tests, the counting of the extra points for those who graduated from the preparatory courses.
Of course, we are waiting for new important stages of the campaign, particularly the creativity competitions and the internal tests, whose objectivity remains under question, three-staged forming and declaration of the lists of the graduates recommended for the admission, the fulfilling of the state demand and the admission of the graduates that will study for the costs of legal entities and private persons. However, now we can already draw certain conclusions about the campaign.
Without the Right to Appeal
The external independent testing was organized in the same terms as in 2010. Though, its outstanding feature was not only the low attendance of the graduates and the issue of different level of the language and literature tests. It was also the delaying of the test checking. The first results were received only on June, 25th – in 23 days after the test. It’s obvious, that the language bloc contains the “B” paper with the open questions that require additional time, hence it’s done manually. But mostly there is only “A” paper with the close questions checked by scanning and comparing with the keys. Nonetheless, the estimation of the results and their announcement was delayed to July, 5th – so that the admission of the documents could last only for 5 days. If last year the “A” paper checking took up to 7 days, this year it took from 10 to 16. Such situation deprived the testing participants of the right to appeal, hence after getting the final results just when the entrance campaign has started, only the bravest would appeal to the Ukrainian Centre of Evaluation of the Quality of Education and would wait for extra 10 days.
The Electronic Admission Failed
The system “Electronic Admission-2011” was implemented to resolve the problem of queues in the admission committees with the help of the registration and passing in the documents via the Internet. Although, its ill technical and legal support turned the system into the aim for critics. Before the campaign began, not all the universities connected to the system and made the contracts with the “Ukrtelekom” structure that was responsible for the data channels. The platform for “Electronic Admission-2011” is supported by the private structure and it threatens the privacy of the personal data.
The admission committees get the complaints that the graduates could not cope with the system and its failures. The graduates had the problems with the registration or the automatic cutting of the points up to the centenaries. So, if the participant had 176,86, the system got 176. According to the data of the press service of the Ministry of Education, Science, Youth and Sports of Ukraine, by July 12th, the middle of the campaign, only 23018 applications were received via the Internet. So, the average activity of the graduates in the university is not higher than 60 applications. Such statistics is not the proof of the system’s efficiency. But the graduates should not worry, hence the Terms of Admission (p. 6.1) point out that the graduate passes the application on his own. Besides, the review of the graduate with the admission terms, the license and the certificate about the certain accreditation in the specialization, and the agreement about the declaration of the admission results is fixed with the signature of the graduate that can not be reached without the graduate because we have no electronic signature tradition in our country. The declaration of the results without the written agreement is the violation.
Extra Points for Extra Courses
According to the updated Admission terms, the graduates planning to enter the natural and mathematical specialities or the technical engineering, and have graduated from the preparatory courses, according to the results of the final examination can get up to 20 extra points.
So, if the future participant of the admission has the possibility to pay for 150 hours of the preparation, then he will be given from 1 to 20 points for it. But some part of the universities has their own understanding of the provision about the internal evaluation and automatically gives the maximum points. So it was done in Donetsk National University, The National Metallurgical Academy, Kharkiv Polytechnical Institute, etc. It turns out that all the students from the courses get excellent marks, or this preparatory system is just a corruption hidden, the open buying of the points for estimated price.
Again the Academic Contests
One of the progressive novelties in the Admission Terms in 2011 is the extra points given to the winners of the national academic contests, the participants of the international academic contests, to the awardees of the all-Ukrainian contest of the Minor Academy of Sciences – instead of the preference in the rating lists. Such way of awarding for outstanding success is more rational and legal.
During the previous years one could see the “winners” with low testing points in the certificate who were recommended for the graduation. Not all the winners of the study contests have the right to get the extra points. They are given only for the awardees of the IV (national) level of the all-Ukrainian contests in the basic disciplines – there are totally 337 such people in 2011, for the awardees of the III level of the all-Ukrainian contest of the Minor Academy of Sciences. This Provision doesn’t include other winners – for tournaments or the contests of the professional skills. For instance, the diploma of the annual All-Ukrainian interactive contest of the young historians “Leleka” doesn’t provide any preferences.
The watchers of the civil network “OPORA” noticed the fact of giving the extra points to the participant of the young lawyers’ contest and this was the violation, hence the contest is neither all-Ukrainian nor the Minor Academy of Sciences. Alas, after the first appeal of the OPORA to the admission committee the deputy secretary couldn’t explain the situation, referred to the unknown letter by the profile ministry and recommended to prepare the official query that is to be answered during 20 days. Later, in the Ministry, the case was referred to as the technical bug and it was promised to correct the situation. Such mistakes are numerous, so it is better to be attentive.
Onward
The hottest time of the campaign hasn’t come yet. It will be along with the internal exams in the universities that slowly replace the independent testing. The right not to pass it belongs not only to those with so-called “creative” specialization but also the school-leavers that left the school before 2007 – on the contrary to those who graduated in 2008. The survey of the last-year lists of the graduates to the creative specializations revealed the “interesting” people who had 124 plus 2-3 points for the Ukrainian language testing, not more than 160 as the average school certificate point and somehow passed the journalists’ exams getting 200 for the well-done article. Such “unique” graduates prove that the return back to the exams doesn’t help to overcome the corruption.
Ol'ha Ajvazovska for Lb.ua