Unified State Examination: Lessons and Perspectives

1
Unified State Examination Lessons and
Perspectives

• Victor Bolotov
• Head of Federal Service for Supervision in the
  Field of Education and Science,
• Ministry of Education and Science,
• Galina Kovalyova
• Deputy Director of Federal Institute for
  Educational Measurement
• Russian Federation

2
Political aspects

• Effective educational management at the country
  level requires the objective and reliable
  information about the educational outcomes at
  different level (international, federal,
  regional).
• Countries will need Bologna Declaration for the
  general education similar as for Higher
  education.

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Starting point

• Subjective nature of the knowledge based
  assessment of general school graduates (long
  history of oral examinations)
• Universities do not trust school assessment -gt
  double examination
• Growing inequity in access to higher education
• rural vs. urban students
• rich vs. poor families

4
Proposed Solution 2001

• Unified graduation examination equal
  requirements and comparable results
• Graduation examinations accepted as University
  entrance examinations

5
Proposed Solution 2001

• Introduction of the objective independent form of
  assessment which provides the basis to
• evaluate the quality of education
• improve the school assessment
• increase the access to professional education for
  the school leavers with different backgrounds
• make University entrance examinations more
  transparent to public, etc.

6
Implementation Story

• 2001
• 4 regions out of 89,
• 16 Universities (1,6),
• 30 000 students (2)
• 2004
• 64 regions out of 89,
• 950 Universities (75),
• 900000 students (75)

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Outputs up to date

• Main results examination materials and the
  technology give more objective and reliable
  results in comparison with the traditional
  examinations
• USE results started to be used as a quality
  evaluation tool for education managers and
  policymakers at different levels
• Number of newly enrolled students from rural
  areas increased up to 10

8
Outputs up to date

• Analytic results of USE started to be used as the
  basis for new textbook development and the basis
  for upgrading teacher training programs
• Main social result increase of the attention of
  the society to school, to the content of education

9
Regional Experience

• SAMARA REGION

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Management by the outcomes
USE 2004
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USE as an information and instrumental base
USE 2004

• Quality monitoring of the educational system
  functioning
• Means of priorities regulation
• Means of forming actual unified educational space
• Means of education quality management
• Means of the education system effectiveness
  evaluation as reflection of correlation between
  the attained outcomes and the spent resources
• Means of commensuration with the state and
  international standards for the educational
  system outcomes

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USE Results - Mathematics
USE 2003
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Admission of students from rural schools to
institutions of higher education of the Samara
region on the basis of the USE results
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Public participation in the USE

• Public observers are selected from
• Members of parents committees of the regional
  educational institutions
• Members of trustees boards of the regional
  educational institutions
• Members of the regional public organizations and
  associations
• Representatives of educational institutions from
  other regions of Russia

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USE 2004 in SAMARA region

• 1. All institutions of higher education in the
  region took part in the USE.
• 2. All faculties admitted students to
  institutions of higher education on the basis of
  the USE results.
• 3. All colleges of the region took part in the
  USE.
• 4. Number of participants 31623.
• 5. Number of examinations/persons 91781.
•  

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Comparison of school year marks and USE marks
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Those who were accepted with the satisfactory
marks and had the satisfactory marks in the first
semester 63
Results of different categories of students in
Universities (first semester)
Those who were accepted with the excellent marks
and had the excellent marks in the first semester
36
Those who were accepted with the good marks and
had the good marks in the first semester 58
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Issues To Be Solved Test Development

• Balance between subject and competency oriented
  tests
• Balance between
• Skills to solve standard tasks
• Higher order intellectual skills
• Practical problem solving
• Underestimation or ignoring of experimental tasks
  
• Increase of practical orientation of the tests
• Increase of predictive validity of tests
• Use of ICT in USE

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Issues To Be Solved Quality Assurance System

• 1. Role of the USE in developing Russia wide
  system of evaluating the quality of education
• 2. Role of the USE in evaluating the
  effectiveness of schools and teachers work

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www.ege.edu.ru
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• Thank you and questions please!
• Victor Bolotov
• Head of Federal Service for Supervision in the
  Field of Education and Science,
• Ministry of Education and Science,
• Galina Kovalyova
• Deputy Director of Federal Institute for
  Educational Measurement
• Russian Federation