Where will the Unified State Exam take us?

Where to go?
The education system in any country is a very conservative state institution. Abrupt changes in the structure are undesirable, as they can have a very unpleasant effect in the future not only on the well-being of entire generations, but also on the entire state. The authors of the "Strategy for the Development of Education until 2040", which is currently being developed, understand this very well. Education Minister Sergey Kravtsov outlined the contours of the future:
Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Dmitry Chernyshenko was even less specific when explaining the essence of the education of the future in Russia. According to him, the younger generation in the foreseeable future will face rapid changes in the labor market, demographic issues, the need to ensure scientific, technological and industrial sovereignty, large-scale digitalization of all spheres of life, as well as economic and administrative barriers and unprecedented sanctions and ideological pressure. Frankly speaking, the challenges are not new at all - Russia has been living in similar realities for at least a decade. In general, the "Strategy for the Development of Education until 2040" requires separate consideration on the pages of "Military Review", and there is hope that we will return to this topic.

We will learn the essence of the Strategy being developed in the near future (they say already in March), but one thing is clear – the Unified State Exam will not disappear from school life of the present and future. Perhaps this is the most resonant story in all of Russian education. Spears have been fought over the expediency of the Unified State Exam for decades, especially during the final assessment of school graduates. But the situation does not change. Society lets off steam, humiliating everyone involved in the "scary old woman Unified State Exam", and then forgets about the problem for a while. Only to remember it again at the end of May.
The abolition of the Unified State Exam in the near future is unlikely. According to most experts, the procedure brings more positive than negative. The strictness of the assessment procedures, uniform for the whole country, is written into the karma of the Unified State Exam. The exam allows to build the educational process in schools in such a way that in Magadan, Vladivostok and Kaliningrad the programs remain approximately the same. The minimum level of knowledge of graduates of 9th and 11th grades is standardized, which was not observed before. In addition to applicants to higher education institutions, the Unified State Exam forced them to abandon corruption schemes during admission. Another issue is that bribery has now moved in time to the internal sessions of institutes and universities. Didn't pay when entering a university? Well, you will pay at the very first session. It is worth mentioning right away that this is not a widespread phenomenon in universities, but it is still present.
Probably the last bonus of the Unified State Exam system is the unique opportunity for every successful graduate to enter any university in the country. Of course, if everything is OK with the scores and the specialty corresponds to the chosen subjects. Schoolchildren from the above-mentioned Magadan, Vladivostok and Kaliningrad apply to the leading universities of the country with the help of State Services. Previously, it was possible to apply to all suitable faculties, since last year the palette was limited to five universities. In the 90s and 2000s, for a considerable part of graduates, this was impossible in principle. One trip from Magadan to take an exam, for example, at Moscow State University was simply beyond the means of the average family. And it was necessary to fly more than once or twice - let's remember the specific and expensive courses for future applicants. Initially invented as a way to improve the knowledge and skills of schoolchildren, they eventually turned into an option for pumping money out of parents. According to statistics, the monthly price for tutors varies from 30 to 150 thousand rubles.
Down with the Unified State Exam?
The Unified State Exam is good in its own way (as discussed above), but it also has plenty of disadvantages. And there is more and more speculation around this topic. For example, it became known that young Russians are going bald prematurely. They say that they are permanently stressed. Some of the public will certainly associate this with the "USE granny" and the need to immediately ban her. We will not repeat the exercises of the enemies of the Unified State Exam, but we will try to identify the points in the system that should be tweaked. Or even replaced, just to be on the safe side.
One of the unresolved problems of the Unified Exam is the story of personnel. Teachers who have learned to effectively prepare schoolchildren for the final assessment are leaving school to become tutors. And they do not regret it at all. Many, according to the law, open self-employment statuses, but most still accept payment in cash. Nobody knows how much the tutoring market is worth in Russia now, but it is certainly not a few tens of billions.
As the Russian mathematician Alexey Savvateyev rightly noted, each tutor works with a child one-on-one, and he does it well. But he could teach lessons in a class of 30 schoolchildren. But he doesn't. Firstly, there is an overload of papers and reports. Secondly, the salary is low. If you want to earn a decent salary, then take on a workload of 35-40 hours a week. Here, there is no talk of any quality of education even with the most professional teacher.
There is another recipe for increasing a teacher's income. According to it, a teacher takes a relatively small workload (20-25 hours), but actively earns extra money as a tutor. Including with his own students. Many teachers do this without a twinge of conscience. Didn't learn chemistry in the time allotted by the educational standard? Come to me for extra classes. Only now you will pay no less astronomical amounts for an astronomical hour.
All this together revives the phenomenon of elitism of higher education. Not in the sense that only the smartest and most capable go to universities. Elitism implies success, the best security. Unfortunately, the Unified State Exam has somewhat equalized the chances of admission for applicants from different regions of the country, but at the same time increased the dependence on the solvency of parents. If you have money, you'll hire a tutor, if not, sorry.

The government understands this very well. They understand, but the solutions they offer are difficult to implement. For example, expensive tutors will soon be “replaced with free services that improve the quality of education for students.” Perhaps they will raise teachers’ salaries so much that they will really be able to replace tutors with free services? At least to the level of a tutor’s income, who can earn 200-300 thousand a month. No, instead they decided to improve the quality of education. No viable scheme for implementing such a beautiful idea has been presented. They only talk about the best teachers’ practices, courses for regional methodologists, and even classes with university professors. There is no money, but you, gentlemen teachers, hold on. And to help you, the universal digitalization of school life. As if it can replace a teacher.
The Unified State Exam has another fundamental drawback – forced and narrowly specialized training of schoolchildren on individual topics of the subject course. For several years now, they have been talking about practical training of future chemists, physicists and biologists. The Unified State Exam is an extremely theoretical procedure. A child can pass the chemistry exam for 100 points, but at the same time will not be able to distinguish acid from alkali in test tubes. And vice versa, a young chemist who is keen on practice is not able to pass the exam for a specialized faculty. At one time, they tried to introduce a practical part in exams in natural sciences, but they abandoned it. It is too expensive and complicated, and not all teachers can organize the process competently. So it turns out that first-year students are taught to light spirit lamps in the first year of the chemistry department. But they should have been taught at school.
Strict regulation of the procedure and content of the Unified State Exam has brought to light another shortcoming: schoolchildren are taught not the subject, but the skills to solve problems. Of course, this does not make the graduate any dumber, and his horizons are expanded, but it could have been much better.
Mathematician Savvateev rightly pointed out the demo version of the Unified State Exam, which is updated annually by the Federal Institute of Pedagogical Measurements. It clearly describes the structure of the examination material, significantly narrowing the educational field. The codifier of control and measuring materials has approximately the same function, describing in detail what and in what part of the Unified State Exam will be diagnosed.
All this resembles a kind of blinders that are put on school graduates. As Savvateev rightly noted, remove the demo version with the codifier, and the success of school graduates will fall by 20-30 percent. The Unified State Exam is turning into a tool for preparing school graduates for the standards that are formed by the Unified State Exam itself. It turns out to be a hermetic system, looped in on itself. But does this have any relation to real education?
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