Not so many days are left to the end of the university admission campaign in 2011. We are looking forward to the most important stage of the process that is the nomination. But we can draw first conclusions before the actual finish of the contest that will result either in receiving the student ID or one more year of waiting.

When the applications receiving stopped, their amount (according to the preliminary data of the “Contest” information system) this year is 290 thousands  people who filed 869 thousands of applications. Besides, there are 42% less graduates in 2011. The amounts of the state demand, the budget places to study for the state expenses, shortened only for 20%. So, it may seem that there can’t be any problems with the graduates: the average contest is less, there not so many candidates for the budget places, the released state budget amounts give hopes to study free of charge. But it’s not as easy. The admission campaign is not elections when the percentage of the violations doesn’t influence the place of the candidates in the rating. The public observers draw relatively satisfactory conclusions: there were some violations but they didn’t influence the results. The graduation mathematics is very far from statistics: each mistake can change the life of young person forever.

Different evaluation – different conditions

The EIT in Ukraine has been done for already 4 years. Its aim is the evaluation of the knowledge level of the particular graduate comparing with others, excluding the human factor, with all possible objectiveness and equal conditions. But, if in 2008 and 2009 all the graduates were obliged to pass the tests and the results were considered only during one campaign, then in 2010 the testing system underwent crucial changes. In 2011 one could bring the certificate issued 3 years ago, and the graduates before 2007 could pass only the “old” exam for the stationary studying.

The innovators from the Ministry explain such liberalism with the help of the care for the graduates and convenience in approach but it hasn’t any basis and harms the constitutional right to get equal right for education.

The problem is that the score of the testing certificate is rating and doesn’t evaluate the absolute knowledge of the participant. So it is incorrect to compare all the ratings for 4 years in 200-points system, because the groups differ according to the level of education, number of participants, tests differ because of the complication and contents etc.

The convenience can’t always be excused. The brightest example is the result of the sociological survey for 2007 made by Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, according to which 53% of citizens justify the bribery as the most effective way for quick access to the goods and decisions. Using of the certificates for different years is the tool to lessen the actual value of the testing; hence the EIT had been thought over to be not only anti-corruption protection but also the way of evaluation of the services provided by the educational institutions including schools.

The civil servants argument the implementation of right to graduate without testing in a very unambiguous way: the school-leavers before 2007 studied for different programs so it is easier to pass the exam for them. If Ukraine hadn’t adopted the testing, let someone imagine that the graduate of, say it, 2000, after coming for the exams got the questions prepared just for his year of graduation? It’s fantastic! So we can see how it can be done that there are more and more people who don’t need to pass the testing; we can also see how the right for equal admission is violated. As a result, certain graduates pass EIT, the rest is in search of weak spots among the tutors. In spring 2010 when the innovation was stated in the 2011 Admission terms, the Ministry assured that there won’t be many graduates of the previous years and this is not a problem to cope with them. But the middle conclusions of the campaign proved the opposite. There are 192 000 of 2011 graduates. There are approximately 290 000 of the graduates registered in the “Contest” system with the applications to the universities. So, there are at least 100 000 citizens who graduated from the school not this year. Simple count shows that there were not so little of the graduates having the right not to pass exams.

Organizing issues

The quality of testing organization causes less criticism each year. The system is well-maintained and the testing staff has no problems they dealt with last year.  But the recent testing has three unique faults worth working at in future. Among them is the unpredictable change of the testing programs in December 2010. During this time the tests should have gone to print and the graduates should prepare to the testing after familiarization with the tasks. Such situation could harm the participants who didn’t get the possibility to start working out the final programs. The second problem that was detected on the testing centers was the unwise delivery system for the certificates – without them the graduates couldn’t take part in the testing hence they had no required documents. According to the UCEQE explanations, Ukrposhta that was responsible for sending the letters with certificates and invitations, for several reasons returned the documents of 2639 applicants to the regional centers. After the clarification of the personal data 2085 letters were sent once more, but 556 of them weren’t delivered, 9 – through a fault of “Ukrposhta”. The numbers are not so bis, but someone has to wait till the next year to use the right for graduation. The least problem concerned the evaluation of the tests. Last year the average term for checking the A paper (without open answers) was 7 days, in 2011 it changed to 10-18. The situation is rather strange: there are less graduates so their tests should be checked faster. Instead of this we got the cases when the last testing result was received on July, 4th, the result from the additional session – on July, 12th, after the beginning of document admission. It is worth mentioning that so the graduates were deprived of the right to appeal the testing results. Each testing participant can address the appealing committee of the UCEQE and demand the revision of the testing results. This may take 10 days so almost no one risked the campaign for the sake of revision of the testing score. In 2011 3206 graduates appealed, the score of 393 was increased, the points of 61 were lowered.

Extra points – extra troubles

One of the progressive innovations in the Terms of the admission to the IHE in 2011 is the addition of the extra points for the winners of national study contests, participants of the international study contests, awardees of the all-Ukrainian contest of the Minor Academy of Sciences instead of giving the preference while drawing the rating list of the graduates.

Such way of rewarding is more reasonable and legal. During the previous years one could notice the “winners” with low points in the school certificate and EIE certificate in the list.

The extra points are given only for the awardees of the IV (national) level of the State school contests for the basic subjects (total – 337 people) and the awardees of the III level of the State contests of the school researches in the Minor Academy of Sciences. This condition of the Terms of entrance excludes the winners of other school contests – the tournaments or the professional contests. For instance, the certificate of the State annual interactive contest “Leleka” doesn’t give any bonuses.

Nonetheless, the OPORA observers noticed the fact of giving the extra points to the winner of the young lawyers contest – and this is the violation of the rules, hence this contest is neither state contest nor the contest from the Minor Academy of Sciences.

But, according to the rating lists, the participants of the admission campaign were added the points for non-profile contests. The admission boards reacted to the critics in a rather plain way, and, blaming the technical problems, corrected the mistakes. But there were also other situations. In Kyiv National University of Building and Architecture the graduate was unlawfully added 30 points and on August, 1st she was in the list of recommended for the nomination. The documents were filed to the specialization “building, civil and industrial building” and “information technologies”. The admission board at first rudely refused to fix the situation and just after the rough conversation and the appealing to the State inspection of the universities the mistake was corrected. Up to 20 points can be added for those who passed the courses for engineering, technical, physical and natural sciences. If the graduate passes 150-hours preparation course, licensed by the Ministry, he will get up to 20 bonus points to the total score. But this new feature was strangely adopted by the universities. The National University "Kyiv Polytechnic Institute", Zaporizhzhya National Technical University, National University "Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute", Donetsk National University, The National Metallurgic Academy of Ukraine added 20 pts to all who passed the courses. So, instead of evaluation the graduates were gifted maximum scores – regardless to the fact if the graduates deserved them. The innovation was turned into covert bribery,- all the courses are paid and the participants are eager to get the points instead of knowledge. The problem is also that not all the graduates can pay for studying – so we face the unequal conditions for different groups. Some universities decided to add extra points for the preparation courses to the economical faculties, - changing the limited list on their own will, that violates the Admission terms. E.g., in Odesa National Sea University 4 graduates got the extra points for the specialization "Management" on the faculty of economics and administration.

The electronic admission and the state demand

Only the laziest avoided the communication about the problems of “Electronic Admission 2011” system and the principle of punishing/awarding by the state demand for the university administration. But it is not so easy to avoid two tasks. In 2011 the graduates had the possibility to file the documents to the admission boards not only in the direct way but also via the Internet. The innovation seems to be quite progressive but its legal and technical base needs improvement.

In a week before start of the campaign only 10% of the universities joined the system. On June, 29th during the conversation between the deans and the Ministry the problem was “solved” due to the “convincing” of the universities that they need to join the system. The delay of the connection led to the breakdowns because by July, 1, the date when the admission of the documents started, not all the universities got their logins and passwords to the system, a lot of universities had no idea how to work in it. It is worth mentioning that the costs from the state budget went to the private structures, one of which provides the monopoly connection service, other owns the website with the entire system.  There were no open tenders between the organizations able to provide such services. The income sums are counted for the dozens of millions. The problems with the work of the system are also burning one.

During the first days of admission there were problems with connection to the database, although there wasn‘t many graduates then. Besides, the graduates expressed complaints because the system sometimes lowered the scores up to the decimal points – the score 186,5 could be registered as 186, the applications were sent to different universities or the system gave up and refused to register the data despite the correctness of their input. But the most trouble was connected with the fact that the data were used by private structures that can use it not only for admission.  One more issue is the legal base of the system. The Admission terms (p. 6.1) say that the graduate personally files the application to the university. The acknowledgement of the graduate with the admission rules, license and the accreditation certificate of certain specialization and approving of release of the testing results is fixed and approved by the personal signature. It is impossible without the visit of the graduate to the admission board hence there is no tradition of electronic signature in Ukraine.  Besides, the spreading of the information about the IET score without written permission of the graduate is the violation.

What is for the division of the state demand in the universities, this year the topic became politic. Until 2010 on the Ministry website one could find the decree with all supplements from which you could get the information about the budget places, analyze it and draw conclusions. But for already 2 years this information is confidential and neither deputies of the parliament nor the public can get the answer to the official enquiries. Some complaints of the deans from the universities that are opposing the ministry show the problem not all the people want to discuss. The deans belonging to another group quietly hide the situation, and the information displayed on the boards illustrate that the loyalty of the administration or belonging to the deputies is awarded with more state budget places. Such a situation is negatively reflected on the quality of the graduates and fulfillment of the indistinct needs of the labor market. But, if it is interesting for some authorities, then it is high time to ring the bell – it’d better not to be the bell of Ukrainian economy.

The article is prepared for the magazine “Ukrayinskyy Tyzhden” (# 32 (197), Augusr 4-10)