Why is the USE needed in Russia? The history of the creation of the exam Minimum and passing scores
The USE (Unified State Examination) is a centralized exam that is conducted in educational institutions of secondary general education with the help of control measuring materials.
C at school (or lyceum) and at the same time the main form of entrance examinations to universities. So, students take the exam in the following subjects: Russian, mathematics, foreign language (English, French, German and Spanish), physics, chemistry, biology, geography, literature, history, social science, computer science.
At the same time, and the rest are optional items. You can take any number of optional subjects - it all depends on the requirements of the university (lists of subjects are usually posted on information stands and on the websites of universities). The results of the USE in points are issued in the form of a certificate of the results of the USE.
The exam is compulsory for everyone who graduated from a school, college, technical school or lyceum after January 1, 2009. In addition, foreign citizens who have studied abroad are required to pass it.
In fact, the main time for passing the exam is May and June.
However, there are two more stages of passing the exam: this is an early period - in April and an additional period - in July.
Graduates of the current year are eligible to take the exam ahead of schedule, namely:
Night school students drafted into the army;
- traveling to Russian or international sports competitions and olympiads;
- traveling abroad or sent for treatment;
- graduates of schools located outside the Russian Federation, in countries with difficult climatic conditions.
In the additional period, graduates of previous years or graduates of primary and secondary vocational education, foreign citizens have the right to take the exam.
Who conducts the exam?
On the territory of Russia, the Unified State Examination is conducted by the Federal Service for Supervision of Education and Science with the assistance of the executive authorities of the constituent entities of the Russian Federation. If the exam is held outside of Russia, then Rosobrnadzor conducts it together with the founders of an educational institution, which must have state accreditation.
Who should not take the exam?
High school graduates who graduated before January 1, 2009, that is, before the USE became mandatory, receive a choice. When entering a university, they can take exams in the traditional form, or they can independently pass the USE. In addition, the USE is optional for graduates with disabilities, pupils of special institutions for children with deviant behavior and graduates of educational institutions of the penitentiary system.
In recent years, school graduates have traditionally taken exams in two compulsory subjects: the Russian language and mathematics. Examinations in other subjects for eleventh graders are voluntary. For obtaining a school certificate, results in other subjects are not important. But they are essential for admission to universities. The fact that the list of mandatory exams in Russia will be replenished with the Unified State Examination in History has been said for more than a year. From what year will the Unified State Examination in History become a mandatory exam for all eleventh graders - the latest news from the Ministry of Education.
From what year can the USE in history become mandatory
Much was said about the imminent introduction of a mandatory USE in history in Russia in May 2017. Then the Minister of Education and Science Olga Vasilyeva announced that already in 2020 history as a school discipline will acquire the status of one of the most important school subjects, and graduates will begin to take the exam in history without fail.
Until 2020, there is very little left. In fact, if Vasilyeva's words became a reality, today's tenth graders would need to prepare for the mandatory history exam.
However, the other day, on October 29, 2018, the same Olga Vasilyeva, whose position is now called the Minister of Education, spoke about the delay in raising the status of the Unified State Exam in history.
According to the minister, the Unified State Examination in History will become a mandatory exam for graduates of the eleventh grade “after 2022”.
The fact is that in 2022, an exam in foreign languages will definitely have to become a mandatory exam. Introducing two mandatory exams at once, in addition to the Russian language and mathematics, means shocking graduates, their parents, and teachers. Until 2022, the status of history as a school subject does not have time to be raised, so the decision has been postponed.
From the words of Minister Vasilyeva, it follows that the Unified State Examination in History will become (if it becomes at all) a mandatory exam no earlier than 2023-2024. Only the parents of today's fifth and sixth graders need to worry about this.
Photo: minsvyaz.ru USE in history as a mandatory exam: pros and cons
Graduates of Russian schools know history poorly. This is a fact that everyone more or less close to this topic is talking about. Even applicants from specialized historical departments sometimes in a bad way amaze university professors with the level of their knowledge.
Minister Vasilieva says the same thing - about poor knowledge of history and that without knowledge of this subject "it is impossible to move on."
FIPI recently confirmed that schoolchildren who pass the exam in history are mediocrely familiar with historical figures, have a poor understanding of cultural history and are often confused about the events of the twentieth century. And these are the graduates who were preparing to pass the exam in history.
Nevertheless, many are sure that there will be no benefit from giving the USE in history the status of a mandatory exam. Or, at least, this decision will cause more harm.
Thus, schoolteacher Alikhan Dinaev from Grozny argues on the pages of the educational portal mel.fm and gives the following arguments against such an innovation:
- Minister Vasilyeva talks like a former history teacher. Of course, for any teacher, it is his subject that is the main one. However, the minister should think more globally. If tomorrow the post of head of the Ministry of Education is taken by a geography teacher, the country, according to this logic, needs to prepare for the introduction of a mandatory USE in geographical science.
- The workload of school graduates in Russia is already excessive. Almost all eleventh-graders who are seriously preparing to enter a university devote all extracurricular time to extracurricular activities. For the psyche and health of adolescents, it will hardly be useful to increase this load.
It is the load, of course, that is the main argument against innovation. Back in 2015, it was decided that starting from 2022, the list of mandatory USE would be expanded to include an exam in foreign languages. This means that in three and a half years there will be not two, but three mandatory exams. Thus, the workload on students will increase markedly. The Ministry of Education still needs to feel the limit and stop sometime.
Mikhail Zadornov
The USE was introduced in France after the former French colonies in Africa became independent states. A wave of Afro-immigrants poured into France. Their education was so primitive that they could clearly answer at the level of "yes", "no" ... Many of them could only count up to ten. Everything that is further, denoted by the word "many". They heard that there are millions, but how many it is, they didn’t imagine exactly.
It was because of them that the exam system was simplified, the Unified State Examination and the test survey system were introduced, in which the ability to think is replaced by guessing. A year later, demonstrations and unrest began in France ... The people protested, the thinking of young people began to turn from multipolar to bipolar. In short, they wanted the best, but it turned out according to Chernomyrdin!
However, the French were great! They did not want to live according to the prophet of the future. Three years later, the French government was forced to abandon innovations, because not only the French people, but also the government itself began to grow dull.
It would seem that it was possible to put an end to the system of a single exam-testing. But no! England all these years has been attentively and with joy watching the dulling France - her eternal rival. It was in those years that America began to irritate England more and more. She was gaining such economic power that she no longer wanted to remain a subsidiary of the London financial branch. The energy of this arrogant young state had to be immediately cut off at the root. It was here that the conclusions made by British intelligence came in handy, observing the “successful” results of the Unified State Examination in France.
It was in the depths of British intelligence that a plan was developed to “castrate” American education. They understood that it was necessary to start zombifying Americans from the youth. To do this, it is necessary to promote the system of tested learning as more profitable. Disconnect the student from the interlocutor teacher. To produce mediocre people-crammers instead of those who have to learn to create.
And so ... in the mid-60s, a group of several people, trained by British intelligence, went to America to engage in PR for a new education system, which was supposed to throw all subsequent generations of American youth in its development several centuries ago. The Americans of that time turned out to be no less greedy for PR than we are today. In less than two decades, the most popular expression in relation to Americans among the world's intelligentsia appeared - "narrow-minded" (narrow-minded).
Using the example of America, it became clear that the USE and the test system of education turned out to be the most massive means of defeating young people! With a range much greater than that of a hydrogen bomb.
The less costly test-based learning system quickly took hold in a profit-calculating America. The creative abilities of an entire generation were switched over to the development of the motor functions of memory. And young Americans before our eyes turned from "eagles" into "fat pigeons."
Many years will pass, several waves of Soviet emigrants will flood into America in a row. In terms of the energy of thinking, education, ability to think - these will not even be waves, but real “ninth waves”. Many will come to America with their children, enroll them in American schools and be madly happy that all their kids are Newtons, Mendeleevs and Leibniz against the backdrop of Americans ... The expression “How stupid they are!” I first heard in America from our emigrants.
But the education system of the Soviet Union continued to be the envy of Western scientific circles. Even in the most difficult years, the intellect of the nation was preserved. It was thanks to him, and not to the Soviet government and not to the economy, that our state was the greatest in the world. Because the wide-ranging development of the child's abilities has always been at the forefront of Soviet education. Teachers tried to teach him to think independently, and not mindlessly memorize.
"Teaching" and "learning" are different words! "Learning" involves the development of conditioned reflexes. Academician Pavlov showed that even animals are subject to learning. Therefore, they live in a world of consumption: the monkey pulled the string - Pavlov himself brings her food! Education involves the development of the brain. "Taught" can reproduce only what was put into it. "Trained" - to give birth to new ideas! You can teach both a monkey and a dog ... To train - only a person! Therefore, if “training” in young people is replaced by “learning”, the reverse process of evolution from man to monkey will begin! What, in fact, happened in many Western countries that followed the American path.
We must pay tribute to the Americans, not all of them accepted the new education system. US President John F. Kennedy also resisted desperately. In one of his speeches, he did not hesitate to express the opinion that the best education system in the Soviet Union.
The USE first appeared in France in the mid-sixties. After the recognition of the former French colonies as independent states, France was flooded with flows of African immigrants who sought work and a better life in Europe. The level of education in the former colonies was so low that immigrants practically could not read and count. It was the influx of illiterate segments of the population into the country that France was forced to simplify the examination system as much as possible. A test system for checking knowledge was introduced, which implied partial or complete guessing of the correct answer in the absence of knowledge of the subject.
Three years later, as a result of a wide wave of protests among the indigenous population of France, the government recognized the failure of the testing system, and the USE was canceled.
The next testing ground for the USE system was America. And so, a few years later, the United States, having adopted the experience of the French, instead of the usual exams, introduced a unified state exam in the form of a test. The test system of education seemed to the US government more cost-effective and reasonable, despite the fact that it was obvious that it completely stopped the development of logic and creative thinking in the younger generation and was aimed only at mechanical memorization of the correct answers. Not all Americans supported such an education system. In particular, President Kennedy openly opposed impersonal testing, but could not do anything.
At the same time, the education system of the USSR for a long time maintained the priority development of the versatile personality of the child, the development of the ability to think independently, be creative in solving problems and be fluent in oral speech. This direction was considered correct for many years and was not subjected to change.
However, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, ways to improve the education system began to be considered, new options for learning and testing knowledge were sought. As a result of a long search, the Ministry of Education of Russia settled on the USE in the form of testing.
By this time, the USE had already been tested on its own system and most countries had abandoned it. In the US, the unified exam still exists. But it is not mandatory for everyone. Anyone can take the exam, but only by paying for this procedure. At the same time, the certificate of passing the USE is taken into account when entering higher educational institutions, but does not replace the mandatory passing of exams in the traditional oral form.
The population of Russia is perplexed. Who benefited from introducing a testing system that all other countries had abandoned? The Soviet education system really needed revision and adjustments. However, to a greater extent, this concerned certain subjects and topics chosen for study by the communists. The main goal of any education is to grow a diversified personality capable of thinking logically, creatively, including ingenuity and fantasy. Will we be able to preserve our great and mighty Russian language if children mechanically tick off the correct answers, if they stop telling the material orally, if they are deprived of the opportunity to dialogue with the teacher during the exam? One can only hope that personal experience in schools and the common sense of officials will nevertheless lead us to the same conclusion that many countries of the world have already made: testing is a test of knowledge, but not a test of personality. It is necessary to prepare people not for the lottery, but for an honest and open life.
How the proposals will improve the effectiveness of the exam, that it is necessary to check the knowledge or understanding of the processes.
The USE appeared in 1966-1967 in France, when France ceased to be a colonial power. Individual states that were part of it gained independence. And the youth of these countries that gained independence wanted to study in the metropolis, that is, directly in France. And then the French came up with this remote test exam, which was carried out in those former colonial territories.
And the one who successfully passed this exam could already come to enter the universities of France. And so, in 1966-1967, the French accepted such graduates for this test exam in all their best universities. By the beginning of 1968, they realized that they were in a difficult situation. And the payments began. Because those who came and entered according to the results of this exam, they were simply not able to study.
This caused a wave of student unrest: these expelled students took to the streets of Paris. The pogroms began. All this ended with the fact that in November 1968 the entire government of General de Gaulle resigned. But in 1971, the Public Chamber of France, very concerned about this whole situation, decided that there should be no more unified test remote exams. Otherwise, as determined by the Public Chamber, another year or two and from the higher education of France there will be no stone left unturned.
But on the other hand, this was very quickly perceived by other people who went to carry out education reform in the United States. In 1968, a whole team went there under the leadership of Professor Andre King from Great Britain, and they brought this French system. As a result, America was infected with this contagion, and by the 1990s, this led to the fact that virtually the entire education system in the United States collapsed. For a long time they could not understand what was happening with them, but in 2009, Obama, having come to the presidency, began to listen to the opinion of the most famous people, among whom he attributed Bill Gates. Bill Gates is not only the richest man in the world, but he is also one of the smartest. So, Bill Gates told him: either we end this testing system or we will be a country of idiots! And judging by his age, Bill Gates studied under this system. Studied. Therefore, he experienced it himself, he knew what he was talking about.
The introduction of the USE in Russia was carried out by a special group that had been working since the mid-1990s. At first, under the leadership of Mr. Soros, and then a special brigade also came. Some of this brigade became unofficial advisers to the Russian Ministry of Education. They very quickly coordinated on the basis of the Higher School of Economics, which was established in 1992 with a special grant from the World Bank. And so this team of advisers began to implement this thing, knowing perfectly well what the result would be.
But Obama in January 2009 appealed to the US Congress with a request to immediately abolish all types of testing, especially final testing at the end of school. And he even asked Congress for $5 billion to bring back the old classic exam certification system.
Anatoly Wasserman tried to make a proposal to improve the efficiency of the Unified State Examination, he proposed to entrust the preparation of tests to specialists in compiling questions for mind games. In such games, it has long been determined how to ask questions in order to check not knowledge, but understanding of the material, how to detect leakage of materials.
Let's try to take into account the fact that it is more important to understand the processes occurring in nature and society, then why do we need to memorize dates and facts, it is much more important why this happens, what can be predicted based on the available information. This approach is important in the study of social science and history, today we just learning the facts, history shows that states often falsify the facts, distort the information that is provided to citizens. Look at the situation in Ukraine, remember the rewriting of history in the Soviet period. All this suggests that understanding is many times more important than memorization, do not forget - information without analysis is not the most rational waste of time. By the way, this applies not only to the social sciences, but also to the natural ones to the same extent. The teaching of mathematics all over the world is reduced to a formal presentation of the material, when no information is given, where knowledge can be applied, what are the limits of the formal use of formulas, for example, by applying some formulas in the same geometry, you can get an angle that does not exist in nature (the angle formed by segments, straight lines or vectors that never intersect in space.) And similar tasks are offered in textbooks and manuals.
