Exam and riot police

A unified exam for 11th graders, the results of which are required to guide all state universities, is a key point in the “Education” section in German Gref’s strategy (see “Results” # 29, 2000 ). In 2001, an experimental unified exam is planned to be held in several regions, and from 2003 it will be mandatory for all schools in the country.

Now the testing center occupies several rooms in the building of the Moscow State Pedagogical University (Photo: Pavel Gorshkov )

The prototype of the unified exam - the all-Russian testing of applicants, the results of which can be counted for admission to some universities - has existed in Russia since 1989, and in 2000 almost 500 thousand people passed through it. Obviously, the assessment of school graduates’ knowledge at the unified state exam will be entrusted to the Testing Center of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation. The director of the center, Vladimir Khlebnikov, spoke to Itogi about the prospects for centralized exams.

- What is the testing mechanism for applicants?
- Universities that work with us inform children and parents about the day of the exam in a particular subject. The graduate pays for testing and comes to the university at the appointed time with a passport and a pen. Outsiders are not allowed. University staff, appointed by order of the rector, take applicants to classrooms, hand out tests and record the time. After the exam, the answer forms are sealed and delivered to the Testing Center in Moscow. We process them and report preliminary results within a week. Works are graded on a 100-point scale depending on the degree of difficulty of each task. Then we print personalized certificates and send them by courier throughout the country.

- How do you ensure the secrecy of test tasks?
- There are a lot of options for tasks. On the eve of the exam, they are sent in sealed packages via special communication channels, and it is unknown to which region and which university what will end up.

- Are there guarantees that the delivered packages will not be opened at the administration office ahead of time? And that teachers won’t help “their” children?
- There are no such guarantees. The objectivity of the results can only be assessed using statistical data. We analyze the results for each item, university and region. If I see that somewhere they are significantly higher than average, then I simply cancel them. For example, in 1996, in the village of Shushenskoye, Krasnoyarsk Territory, abnormally high scores were noted on a mathematics exam. I asked for the test to be retested, and, of course, the results were much worse. This year, at the Industrial Institute of the city of Rubtsovsk in the Altai Territory, the results of the physics exam were higher than the average for Moscow and St. Petersburg. I canceled about forty inflated results. But the rector of the institute refused to conduct repeated testing.

This year we introduced cross-inspections: employees of one university supervised testing at another university, employees of this university - at a third, and so on. Perhaps for this reason, the number of applicants who scored the highest score has decreased: for example, in mathematics - from 1.3% in 1999 to 0.5% in 2000.

- Weren’t the employees of your center inspecting the work convicted of bribery?
- That's out of the question. When processing five hundred thousand forms, it is impossible to find the right one. But in any case, nothing can be fixed about them. Stacks of forms are loaded onto an auto-feed scanner, and the information is entered into the computer. A special program determines the percentage of correct answers and immediately prints the protocol.

- Who writes the test tasks?
- At our request, this is done by specialists from the Russian Academy of Education and teachers from famous universities, including Moscow State Pedagogical University, MEPhI, St. Petersburg State University, Kuban State University.

- Were there any complaints about the quality of tests from the rectors of universities where certificates are accepted?
- No, the quality is very high. After all, almost half of the country’s state universities accept applicants with our certificates. In addition, the number of universities that ask to provide them with tests for entrance exams and process the results increases from year to year. This year, about three dozen universities did this, including the State Academy of Press, Tula Pedagogical Institute, and Krasnodar State University.

- Is it possible to conduct a unified state exam using the same technology as applicant testing?
- I guess, yes. But these procedures have different statuses. Now, in order to enter a university, you don’t have to participate in testing. And all schoolchildren will have to pass a single exam, and all universities will be required to trust its results. Therefore, the organizers must ensure maximum secrecy during the exam. After all, parents will do everything possible to ensure that their children get high scores. It will be necessary to test all graduates at the same time - universities will not be able to accommodate them, and the unified state exam will have to be held on the basis of schools.

- How can parents influence the results?
- When we conduct certification testing in schools, which is equivalent in status to a final exam, we note in agreements with local authorities that during testing there should be no parents or subject teachers in the classrooms and adjacent corridors. But there were cases when parents broke down doors, sent notes, and some teachers, under various pretexts, tried to remove children from classes to help them solve the task. And all this is not even for the sake of entering a university, but for the sake of a grade in the certificate!


The testing center processes exam paper forms from all over the country (Photo: Pavel Gorshkov )

- How is it supposed to ensure secrecy?
“It is impossible to do this without the involvement of law enforcement agencies.” During testing, riot police, FSB or Ministry of Defense officers must be on duty in schools. This practice exists in some countries. For example, in Turkey, test items are brought to schools in armored vehicles. You can also learn from colleagues from the CIS. Uzbekistan uses Turkish experience: state security service employees are present during testing.

- And in this case, protection against fraud is one hundred percent?
- Not sure. A one-time exam, which determines the future fate of the child, provokes parents and teachers to commit crimes. It will be very difficult even for representatives of law enforcement agencies to keep them from doing this, because they are also living people. In general, in order to assess a child’s level of preparation as objectively as possible, independent testing at school should be carried out several times over eleven years, and admission to universities should be based on final grades. And this will benefit many. Parents will have an objective assessment of the child’s knowledge. The school director will be able to evaluate the work of the subject teacher, and managers will be able to evaluate the work of the school. In Russia, we are too accustomed to the fact that the school itself teaches and evaluates the quality of education itself. Naturally, the assessments are biased. It happens that one school produces up to forty medalists a year!

- Is it realistic to hold an experimental unified exam in some regions in 2001?
- Yes, we have already drawn up cost estimates for Yakutia and Mordovia. It will be especially difficult to conduct the exam in Yakutia - it is a huge territory with poor infrastructure.

- If testing becomes universal, what will be the principle of issuing certificates that guarantee one or another degree of financial support?
- You can select 20 percent of the best works and give these students an “A” certificate. The next twenty percent receive a “B” certificate and so on. But in general, these problems are not our concern. Testing center - technical structure. The decision to use the results of the unified exam will be within the competence of the Ministry of Education.