In Russia, discussions about canceling the Unified State Exam occur in public with a frequency of several months. The most recent initiative came from a group of LDPR deputies, who drafted a relevant bill. Pyotr Tolstoy, Deputy Speaker of the State Duma, referred to the exam as a “special police operation on children” and claimed that both teachers and parents opposed it. Viktor Alexandrovich Bolotov, one of the creators of the exam concept, former head of Rosobrnadzor, professor at the Higher School of Economics, and academician of the Russian Academy of Education, commented on the phenomenon of the Unified State Exam’s unpopularity.
— Viktor Alexandrovich, the issue of the abolition of the Unified State Exam is raised annually. Such conversations are accompanied by the results of surveys in which respondents oppose the exam. In your opinion, are the people really against the Unified State Exam?
— You know that sociologists often joke: the right answer or information can be guaranteed to be obtained by making the “right” sample and the “right” questionnaire. So when they tell me what the survey showed, I’m interested: who did you ask, what was the sample, what was the questionnaire? Very often, the samples are strange, and so are the questionnaires.
Yes, at first there was total rejection, but young people are increasingly supporting the unified exam and continue to support it. The older generation has questions. You know, in Soviet times, such a meme was popular (then, however, this word was not yet known): “I have not read Brodsky, but I join the angry condemnations.” People condemn the Unified State Exam without knowing anything about it.
— What exactly are they condemning?
— They are talking about “guessing games” again, but there are no “guessing games” in the Unified State Exam. People who criticize the Unified State Exam have never seen the exam assignments. Although everything is posted on the website of the Federal Institute of Pedagogical Measurements (FIPM). Anyone can go to the website and see demo versions of the exam there.
— Why, in your opinion, is a negative view of the Unified State Exam so common?
— Lack of positive PR. It’s like an old joke. They wrote to the newspaper: the postman delivers the mail on time — nothing interesting. But if they had written that the postman was bitten by a dog, then we would have been happy to publish it.
In St. Petersburg and Moscow, there are many schoolchildren from the regions who entered the Unified State Exam. Just for the sake of interest, ask them if it is necessary to cancel the unified exam.
Let me remind you that the Unified State Exam was created in order to solve the problem of accessibility of high-quality higher education for children from the hinterland. In those years, when the commission was given to create a unified state examination, it was a joint decision that was supported by many. It’s time to change the situation with university entrance exams, where, frankly, admission was too often for “their own”.
Yes, they swear at tutors, but let them remember the Soviet tutors. What amounts did they charge if they used their knowledge of the questions in the entrance exams? Did you take the exam yourself?
— I was just among the first streams.
— Well, is it terrible?
— To be honest, I don’t remember anything anymore.
— So there was no injury. Entrance exams are always stressful, whether in the form of the Unified State Exam or not. When the experiment with the Unified State Exam began, we measured the pulse and blood pressure of graduates before and after the exam at one of the universities with doctors. Moreover, the exam was conducted for some in the form of the Unified State Exam, for others — as usual. In both cases, the pressure jumped, the pulse quickened. The figures were comparable.
There is also talk that children are allegedly scared by cameras. Now there are cameras in every store, at airports, on the street. And it doesn’t scare anyone. People are no longer paying attention to these cameras. So all this is speculation.
During the covid in the first year, they wanted to cancel the Unified State Exam and interviewed teachers and students. I then remembered a letter from a girl, I will not say from which region:
“I was going to enter St. Petersburg and Moscow universities. By canceling the Unified State Exam, you leave me in my run-down town. We don’t have any money, and I can’t risk going to Moscow and St. Petersburg to enroll.” This is a real life story. Therefore, the cancellation of the Unified State Exam is most often another attack to promote yourself, a fighter for the right thing.
— In your opinion, what needs to be changed? Maybe positive PR is needed at the state level?
— We need interviews with applicants, to work more actively in the media space at the level of ministries and departments, to work seriously with the media. Young people take information from the Internet, watch YouTube, adults and the elderly draw more information from paper sources. We must take all this into account.
— It turns out that the assessment of the Unified State Exam shows a gap between the younger and older generations, while the latter still talk about the advantages of the Soviet school.
— In my youth, there were prettier girls, tastier beer, and bigger crayfish. It’s an old story. If we are serious, then talking about the fact that the Soviet school was the best in the world is a very strong exaggeration. The Soviet school was one of the best in the world for children who were motivated and wanted to study seriously at universities. And there weren’t very many of them. And when the Soviet school became massive and the high school was obliged to teach all children, everything fell down there. If you talk to adults who studied in those years and ask how many of their classmates knew physics and chemistry at a good level, and mathematics? There were a quarter to a third of such students in the class. The wording then appeared: “we put three and two in mind.” But the world is changing, and we can still hear calls from the older generation to ban the Internet.
The lack of positive PR is the main drawback. In many countries, there is an analogue of the unified state exam: in the States, in the UK, and in China. They also criticize the exam, but there is no hype around this and no parliamentarians are foaming at the mouth: “Down with the unified exam.”
— In one of the previous interviews, you said that you can leave the Unified State Exam only for those who enter the university. Let the rest take the exam at school.
— There are only two compulsory exams now: in mathematics and Russian. All the rest are for those who enter universities. In mathematics, I think we have made the right step. The exam was divided into two levels: basic and profile.
You also need to do it with the Russian language. But we can’t break the philologists yet. In my opinion, there are a lot of redundant questions on the Russian language exam. Look at the tasks from basic mathematics — these are the same tasks from life.
— What path is the development of the Unified State Exam taking now?
— The task that was set a long time ago and which they are engaged in, but have not yet solved, is the remote examination. The case when a person can take the exam at home. The main problem there is how to avoid fraud. Remember, when covid played out and distance education came to schools, a video was popular — mom sat under the table and dictated answers to her son.
To avoid this, there is a proctoring technology. In particular, it is being developed at ITMO. There are successes, but the problem has not been completely solved all over the world. When there is a normal technology, cheap and reliable, then it will be a serious step forward.
— So at some point we can abandon the points of conducting the exam? It’s hard to believe now.
— Artificial intelligence was also a fantasy 20 years ago. The possibility of retaking the exam is also being discussed now, I think the idea is correct. It was discussed from the very beginning of the experiment with the Unified State Exam. It was all about money. Who will pay for this procedure: the state or the one who retakes.
In fact, this is a lot of money, since it is necessary to develop another set of exam materials, include the same points for conducting a single exam with security, teachers, security, and so on. By the way, this problem has not been completely solved today. Negotiations are still underway.
The original source: https://www.fontanka.ru/2024/03/20/73354907/
