Lukashenko: clear system needed for centralised exam
During the consideration of personnel issues, the President of Belarus touched upon the topic of centralised exam organisation in the country
The results of the recent centralised exam have caused a mixed reaction in society, and Aleksandr Lukashenko noted, “A whole fuss was made after the single centralised exam. You failed to be smart enough to make it simple and clear to calculate the centralised exam points. Some statistical figures began to be produced by a computer. Who needs this?”
The Head of State drew attention to the transparency of the Soviet system of knowledge assessment, “When entering [an educational establishment], we understood that Grade 3 meant we knew the subject, Grade 4 – knew very well, Grade 5 – excellent. Meanwhile, we are now calculating some points on the computer.”
Aleksandr Lukashenko noted that he had earlier asked the Head of the President Administration to prepare an analysis of the shortcomings that people pay attention to, “What have I been provided with? What a report could be made? We need to make a normal, understandable system, and we should return to this again next week. The entrance exam is not just an entrance exam. Here, the most advanced families control the admission of their children, and this is natural. However, they do not understand what we want from these children. Most importantly – as he reports to me – the recent exam has shown its identity with the last two years when children took exams at school. So why did we arrange this mess then?”
The Head of the President Administration, Igor Sergeyenko, later told reporters, “The President has today set the task to inspect the centralised exam organisation, to study this issue, to check and clarify what results have been obtained, and whether these results correspond to the organisation that was conducted.”
Mr. Sergeyenko clarified, “The centralised exam in Russian and Belarusian languages was organised in the country, attracting more than 53 thousand high school pupils. Of these, 900 boys and girls showed a result of 100 points – which was significantly higher than in 2022 (there were slightly more than a hundred then). More than half showed good knowledge: higher than grades 8, 9, 10, if to look at their school certificates. Nevertheless, we began receiving appeals from children – and primarily parents – with a request to explain how the final grade was calculated, and why it was lower than during the rehearsal exam. Quite a lot of complaints are coming.”
According to the Head of the President Administration, the work will be carried out in two directions. “All complaints will be considered, and all parents of high school pupils will receive explanations. On the one hand, we will look into each complaint carefully. On the other hand, we will look at how the work was organised by the Education Ministry, whether everything was fair, to what extent the methodology used and approved by the Education Ministry meets the modern requirements. We will study whether there are any violations of the latter,” he said.
As noted by Mr. Sergeyenko, based on the available information, there were no violations from the first sight. “At the same time, I would like to emphasise once again that the President delves into this topic. The task was set to study each appeal in the shortest possible time – doing this fairly and objectively. We will work over it in the coming days.”
