The Sixth Meeting of USETI Alliance Partners

Wednesday, 21 December 2011

The sixth meeting of the Alliance for the Development of the Ukrainian Standardized Testing Initiative was held on December 21, 2011 in Kyiv.  At the meeting representatives from leading universities, experts, and the U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID) discussed how external independent testing (EIT) should be developed to promote equal access to higher education.

Christina Beck, USAID representative welcomed the decision of the Ministry of Education and Science, Youth and Sports of Ukraine to develop a dialogue with experts on how to ensure fairness and transparency during the admission process to educational establishments.  Ms. Beck emphasized that fairness itself helped achieve a fairly high level of education and scientific research in the USA.

Vadym Karandiy, Associate Director of the Ukrainian Center for Educational Quality Assessment (UCEQA), detailed how his organization helped USETI Alliance in recent years and thanked them for their cooperation.  Specifically Mr. Karandiy reported on the progress being made in implementing scholastic aptitude testing (SAT).

Anatoliy Harmash, a MoESYS representative  reported on the most recent achievements made in developing and implementing a national qualifications framework that would bring Ukraine more in line with European educational standards.

Professor Serhiy Rakov, Director of the Scientific Methodological Department of the UCEQA talked about administering SATs on a regional level in 2011.  Mr. Rakov showed examples of the SATs used during the pilot and discussed the results of surveys conducted to assess the attitudes the target group had towards SATs.

Mr. Rakov analyzed problems associated with the single level subject tests that are currently used and the two level subject tests and SATs which are being developed to supplement them.  The SAT concept was developed by a work group under orders from the Ministry of Education and Science.  The work group was led by Oleksandra Lyashenko academician from the National Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of Ukraine and Professor Serhiy Rakov, Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences and included professionals from six leading universities.

A presentation entitled "The Law of Ukraine: On Higher Education, It's Present State" was made by Volodymyr Kovtunets' Legal Advisor for USETI Alliance.  Mr. Kovtunets' highlighted non-competitive admissions to HEIs, equality among HEIs under various forms of ownership, autonomy for universities, etc, which in one form or another are contained in various laws and may violate the Constitution or cause problems along the path to brining the Ukrainian System of higher education in line with the Bologna system.

Mr. Kovtunets' reminded the audience that D. Tabachnyk is the forth Minister of Education who has tried to pass a law on higher education through the Ukrainian Parliament that would address the current needs of the country.

Volodymyr Buhrov, Vice Chancellor of the Shevchenko National University of Kyiv also spoke on this topic.  His presentation was on the work group which is developing the On Higher Education legislation at the Ministry of Education and Science, Youth and Sports of Ukraine.

For the American Councils on International Education, Yarema Bachynskiy, USETI Alliance Coordinator, reported on the 2^nd Employers' Forum which was held by USETI Alliance in November 2011.  Details can be found on the USETI Alliance web site.