On June 16, due to the spread of information on the Internet that the EIT (External Independent Testing) this year may be canceled, the rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University to appeal on behalf of the UCU community to the country's leadership with an urgent request to assure the citizens of Ukraine as soon as possible that the EIT will be held according to the schedule approved by the MES, and will begin on June 25 this year.
Source: UCU
It is too late to decide on June 22, the UCU representatives believe.
"We share the belief that taking care of human health and respecting human life are important responsibilities of both the state and society as a whole. Therefore, we are aware of all the health risks for the participants of the EIT posed by the spread of COVID-19. But we also believe that teachers and school graduates who are themselves interested in both preserving their health and conducting EIT will be as disciplined as possible and strictly adhere to the rules and procedures for conducting EIT during the pandemic, developed by the Ukrainian Center for Educational Quality Assessment.
The alternative idea of enrolling students based on the average grade of a high school certificate does not stand up to criticism. Evaluation is a relative thing. The higher the requirements of the school, the lower is the average score of students. In schools where student achievements are lower, higher grades will be given for the same results in schools where strong students study. This is natural because evaluation should be an incentive to achieve better results. Only the EIT evaluates all graduates equally. We can punish the best students by entering according to the assessment of the certificate," the UCU notes.
EIT is called by the UCU "the most successful reform in the field of education in Ukraine for the years of independence", which allowed able and hard-working students, regardless of their property status or social status, to enter the best educational institutions in the most prestigious specialties.
"The abolition of the EIT will return us to the days of telephone law, to dependence on money, to the habit of "solving questions", rather than adhering to the truth and academic virtue. So we will not allow destroying the already achieved achievements," the rector's office and the UCU community warn.
"We have a great hope that the country's leadership will heed to our warning messages and will not allow the education system to be thrown back into the corrupt past under the guise of caring for people's health," these words conclude the appeal of the UCU regarding the EIT.