Educational utopia, anti-utopia and reality

Plans of the Education Ministry make us await 2005 with trepidation On July 2, the RosBusinessConsulting news agency held an Internet news conference of Education Minister V. Filippov. The news conference was devoted to the preliminary results of experimental government tests for school graduates. The minister was answering questions put forward by visitors to the site during an hour and, judging from these questions, the optimism and unshakable decisiveness of the government official did not correspond with the perceptions of other participants of the event. It seems to us that this result exactly corresponds with the general situation: the ministry and the public have quite different attitudes to the outcome of the experiment. For example, it is unclear to many people why instead of extending the range of prestigious universities and departments that school graduates can enter, on the basis of the government test results, the ministry is striving to increase the number of regions involved in this experiment. Moreover, the ministry's organizational weakness has become even more apparent, as the scale of this program was extended, and a lot of inconsistencies and miscalculations were discovered.

In fact, it should have been done differently: organizational and technical aspects were to be improved until they become optimal, while the quality of materials for control and analysis of results were to be increased. However, the main problem is to convince university chancellors and to show the public that the leading universities offer seats in their best departments for young people who passed the government test. This would be the most powerful argument and the most convincing proof of the efficiency of this innovation.

However, the opposite is done in practice: because of the unjustified territorial expansion of the government test, the organizational and technical levels are declining, public confidence is decreasing, and nobody even thinks of moral losses.

In our opinion, the main negative result of the experiment was that instead of the replacement of two exams with one exam, as it had been promised, the experiment is developing in a quite unexpected direction.

We would be very displeased if the Pervoye Sentyabrya newspaper once again gave its readers a forecast that became a scenario of real events (as it previously happened in connection with 12 years of schooling or educational standards). Yet, to all appearances, the only real result of the introduction of the government test will soon be the replacement of two exams (the high-school final exam and the exam for university entrants) with three exams for our school graduates: the high-school final exam, the government test, and the exam for university entrants.

In reality, the high school final exam will become latent, since the preparation for the government test, as well as the assignment of final-year grades will require some assessment of schoolchildren's knowledge. Schools will begin to hold different kinds of tests, of which they have plenty in stock.

Then school graduates will face the government test.

Presently it seems to be the only option left for the ministry to receive a satisfactory result of the modernization program, approved by the government. This is supposed to be a "winner takes it all" case, but the ministry seems to have received a mandate that will be valid until the end of this experiment, i.e. until the end of 2005. The situation looks very similar to that described in Renata Mukha's verses for kids: "OK, I can give up the crown, but please let me finish eating the pasta first!" And since any agency faces the threat of changes in its staff, the government test is a kind of a guarantee for the present administration of the ministry to stay in power.

Therefore, school graduates will have to take the government tests for at least two more years in addition to high-school final exams.

Since universities will not abandon exams for entrants in two years, school graduates will have to take these exams too.

At the same time the ministry will have exact information on the results of work of each school in each region, and the winners can receive an award.

However, there is a different view in response to our fantasies.

Lets cite the transcript of Minister Filippov's news conference:

"In 2005, school graduates (who pass the government test - ю.ю.) will certainly be able to enter any university of the country. Children who pass the government test at school (two compulsory exams, and three exams of their choice) will be able to submit their application to five or 25 universities. A university that receives an application shall input data into a computer, and it is automatically sent to a Russian national site. All children and every family will be able to see every university in the country and every department in a university in July, as well as the number of seats in a department financed by the government and a red line. Everybody will see the names of all children who are above the red line and their ratings and those who are below the red line and their ratings. It all will be stopped on July 31 at midnight. Those above the line will be admitted, those below the line will not yet be admitted. It will almost certainly happen that a person will be admitted to five or seven universities simultaneously. What can be done? As it is now, a person will have to submit the originals of the test certificate and the school graduate's certificate to the university chosen before August 15. On August 15 this person’s name will be deleted from the lists at universities which this person did not submit the certificates to. And the names of children who were below the line will go up. The whole nation will be able to see that."

So, the deal is completed: we gave you our view, and the minister gave his.

We will be happy if our view of the future proves wrong.

However, the nation will see, as it was said above. And quite soon.