The Half-way Point of the HEI Admission Campaign Monitoring

Monday, 9 August 2010

A new civic project to monitor the 2010 admission campaign to establishments of higher education (HEIs) was introduced on July 9th at a press conference held by the Committee of Voters of Ukraine (CVU) and the Civic Network OPORA.  This project will be organized within the framework of the civic campaign “For Fair Admissions!” which is supported by the International Renaissance Foundation and the USETI Alliance.

Members will monitor the admission process in 50 HEIs across Ukraine.  Participants of the press conference, Natalya Lynnyk (Project Leader from CVU) and Ol’ha Ayvazovs’ka (Administrative Director, OPORA) presented the results of monitoring in a statistical report.  During the press conference they also listed the main problems applicants encountered when submitting applications and those associated with creating the lists of those to be offered admission. 

Ms Lynnyk and Ayvazovs’ka shared recommendations aimed at helping applicants avoid problems when submitting original documents, exposed procedural problems of being included for the traditional form of study under the government quota, and announced minimum grade requirements for inclusion into the most prestigious HEIs in Ukraine. 

Bohdana Zinkevych, a Konkurs hotline operator also participated in the press conference; she revealed problems associated with HEIs timely and accurate reporting of information that is to be entered in the informational system. 

Press conference participants shared the proposals their organizations made to the Ministry of Education and Sciences and to HEIs in order to improve the admission process. 

Ol’ha Ayvazovs’ka, Administrative Director of the civic network OPORA stated: 

“The civic network OPORA is disconcerted after receiving reports that the HEI administered entrance exams lacked objectivity.   We confirmed two instances where an applicant who received a perfect score in external independent testing (EIT) in Ukrainian Language and Literature test, and had over 190 points credited from his final secondary GPA, received less than 130 points during the additional exams for those applying for journalism.  After such contests 2/3 of the rating list was changed; these rating lists determine the order in which students are offered admission.  If someone questions the grade obtained in school or during ETI they can breach the issue of test quality or question corruption in generalized secondary educational establishments.  However, if the school and the Ukrainian Center for Educational Quality Assessment (UCEQA) confirm the level of knowledge of a particular hopeful freshman in specific subjects, they why is there such a gross lack of correlation with grades received during HEI testing?  One cannot help but note that there are instances where the exact opposite occurs; when a score of 125.5 in related subjects was turned into a score of 196 during HEI administered testing.   In light of this, comprehensive monitoring of the HEIs is needed by the Ministry of Education and Sciences.  If such inconsistencies are systemic, then the process of administering additional HEI administered testing needs to be reviewed.  Also, for us it is puzzling why some HEIs do not publicize all the details in their lists of those recommend for admission, violating the norms of the Rules of Admission.   Some HEIs publicize only the full name of the applicant and leave out his admission score and if he was admitted without contest because of privileged status, or as a result of being a winner in an Olympiad, etc.  Because of this lack of publicized information, applicants who are lower in the ratings do not have the possibility to review if the list of those being admitted is legitimate.“

In her address, Nataliya Lynnyk, Projects Director for the CVU addressed the following issues: 

“The main problem encountered by graduates during this phase of the campaign was choosing HEIs and specialty.  There is another group of applicants who have high admission scores and were admitted to many HEIs under government quotas but were not offered admission to the most desired HEIs during this first round of admissions.  Currently there are no clearly delineated stages during which original documents need to be submitted.  Earlier it was anticipated that there would be two stages for submitting original documents.  Changes in the rules of admission failed to clearly define a time frame for submitting original documents during the second round; each HEI will make their own decisions about unfilled spots in the government quota.  For this reason applicants with high ratings who were not offered admissions during the first round to must be very attentive and flexible:  regularly checking with the admission commission to see how many applicants submitted their original documents and how many spots have freed up, as students will be offered admission during the second round on a first come first served basis.” 

“Regarding the questionable tactics at certain HEIs--each HEI developed these tactics by creatively using the resources available to them.  Nothing changed this year, the majority of prestigious HEIs continued to determine who to admit not only for the government quota but also for tuition paying slots based on how much the applicants were willing to pay for the privilege of being admitted.  Some HEIs left room for negotiation, for example if there were 40 spots with full government scholarships, the list of those being accepted would include only 36 individuals, reserving 4 spots to be used at their discretion.  Деякі ВНЗ залишили собі місце для торгу, до прикладу обсяг бюджетних місць 40, а списки рекомендовані до зарахування 36, 4-ри місця притримані.

Information is easily available in the Konkurs system, where lists of the individuals offered admission to each HEI speak for themselves beautifully.  In certain HEIs the first 10-20 names of those being offered admission usually include winners of Olympiads and Small Academy of Science contests with admission scores of around 640.  These contest winners with such low admission scores are usually found to be former pupils of schools associated with various city councils.  It is clear that their parents were advised to send their child to Olympiads in a timely fashion.   In Ukraine, even beneficial competitions which aren’t identified as ‘Olympiads’ can influence the of future promising candidates—the Small Academy of Sciences is often used as a means to gain access to prestigious specialties in mediocre HEIs by people with average abilities.”