The statement of the head of Rosobrnadzor Anzor Muzaev that by 2030 the Unified State Exam will acquire a digital form, made us think again about possible alternatives to the final certification and how effective they will be.
For the first time in Russia the Unified State Exam was held in 2001 as an experiment, and since 2009 it has become the main form of state final certification of school graduates of the Russian Federation. Since then, the procedure for its implementation has been repeatedly improved until today, but new needs come, and a new, more modern, that is digital solution is required.
“The Unified State Exam will take a new form this decade. By 2030, we will see a completely different procedure, this is due to digitalization” — the forecast of Anzor Muzayev.
The decision wasn’t long in coming, and Rosobrnadzor developed the concept of a digital portfolio, which will take into account all the achievements of the student, starting from the fourth grade, including volunteering and participation in Olympiads. At the end of the 11th grade, students will be evaluated not by the results of the exam, but by the number of points and achievements in the aggregate.
It’s too early to judge the effectiveness of such system, and no one is going to cancel the Unified State Exam yet. But is such a system of knowledge control as the Unified State Exam suitable for new, progressive generations? This question cannot be answered clearly. But it’s quite obvious that each generation needs its own unique approach. And this approach should be determined taking into account the opinion of the society itself.
If you look at the leading education systems in the world, it’s difficult to find examples among them that are radically different from what is available in our country. The order of tasks and the set of subjects are different, but the meaning is the same: tasks are based on the principle of testing in the question-answer format. It’s important to note that the first analogue of the Unified State Exam was held in France back in the 60s and received a sharply negative reaction from the population with protests and demonstrations: the protesters believed, that the mandatory test exam would lead to a decrease in the level of literacy of the population.
Russia has already accumulated sufficient experience in using the system of knowledge assessment in the USE formats. After all the above, I would like to believe that the implementation of the new assessment system will take into account the mistakes of the past years, and in the next decade the country will receive innovative and adapted to the needs of the new generation of knowledge testing methods.
