Semynozhenko: No entrance exams in institutes at present

Predictably enough, answering questions from the public on a direct line organized by the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda in Ukraine, the Deputy Prime Minister on Humanitarian Affairs Volodymyr Semynozhenko was mainly asked about the entrance procedure for higher education.

As reported here, both Semynozhenko and the new Minister of Education, Dmytro Tabachnyk, have come out against the present system of independent external assessment ZNO.  Semynozhenko’s statements to the effect that students would instead enter institutes on the basis of ZNO results, but also a school certificate and entrance exams in the specific institute, have aroused anxiety among many students and their parents, given that the exams are very soon. The plans to reject ZNO as the sole criterion have been strongly opposed by many civic organizations, including OPORA and the Committee of Voters of Ukraine which believe it will open the floodgates once again for corruption and therefore jeopardize equal access to education.

Mr Semynozhenko has said that entrance exams within institutes will not for the moment be introduced, however he said that “only a part of the assessment is being introduced, linked with the level of the certificate on secondary education. But this will be approximately one third of the success during the entrance procedure”.

He also stated that students would be able to take tests in the language they studied in at schools.  He mentioned Russian, Hungarian, Crimean Tatar and other languages, however it is questionable whether the exams in all these languages would be available. It has to be said that this point is likely to be a relief to the majority of students in the Crimea who study in Russian, but were facing two compulsory exams in Ukrainian.

New information from a summary of the interview at http://kp.ua/daily/240310/220738/ (the full transcript has yet to be published)