The talked about knowledge evaluation and testing center has already
been founded and professor of the Yerevan State University’s Mechanics
Faculty Vanya Barseghyan has been elected as director. During the
upcoming months there will also be staff members. “The second project
of Armenia’s educational system has started to be implemented thanks to
the loan provided by the World Bank,” said Vice Director of the
National Institute of Education Gagik Melikyan. “The first stage of the
project concerns the educational system which was founded and confirmed
by the government and currently functions. This includes the 12 year
educational system, revision of projects, standards, list of subjects,
the academic plan and correspondence to international standards. We
need to create large numbers of work groups in order to make new plans,
books, etc.” Plans are being developed for making reforms in the
evaluation policy as we speak and there are already ten major objective
groups who are developing the new testing system. “We do not want to
lose the academic methods of the Soviet Union, but we don’t want to be
satisfied with just that either. We want to create a practical side to
it all,” said G. Melikyan. As an evaluation system, instead of having 5
as the highest grade, 10 will be the new high grade. Another evaluation
system may be applied during the final exams in the graduating year.
There may be a 100 point evaluation during the university admission
exams. Today, specialists are also checking on the list of exams.
According to preliminary data, the 10th grade student must take exams
in Armenian language, mathematics, a foreign language and may choose
two other exams. The new educational system offers the student to take
some of his exams through centralization. This means that the grades
received will be transferred to the university. “Today the student
takes two exams for the same subject in order to graduate from school
and get accepted into university. According to the new system, a
student must take one exam for each subject. If the student takes
his/her chosen subject through the centralization method, then the
student receives both the school certificate and a certificate from the
university,” says G. Melikyan.
One exam in one day
The testing system is still being discussed but the approaches made are
pretty clear already. The centralized exams need to be taken in one day
in all schools of the Republic of Armenia. “We are shortening time a
little, but we need to enlarge the space because you can not have
5-10,000,000 people all gathered in one place.”
Today, there is a lot of talk going around that the students applying
to get accepted are not educated, but rather trained. That is due to
the fact that the students applying simply memorize the whole data base
knowing beforehand that there will be the same kinds of exercises that
he or she has studied. The new system, according to G. Melikyan,
requires knowing more than that. “One part of the test has been
formatted and more has been added to the second part. In order for the
child to not come having the data base memorized and try to find the
familiar examples, the new system prefers informing the applicant about
the types of exercises and not the examples. This is done for the
applicant’s brain to start working.” There will be no more oral exams.
However, as G. Melikyan said, from the objective point of view oral
exams have an advantage in that they help the applicant communicate
directly with the professor. Problems arise in checking the foreign
language exam because here there is no means of communication. “This
really is a problem,” says G. Melikyan, “perhaps we can install a
computer program and the student has to go through a dialog…..as for
now, we will stick with the written exam. We are still considering
that.” All the above mentioned projects will be completed in December.
It is foreseen to try the new system in the 2006-2007 school year with
only two subjects: Armenian language/literature and mathematics. “Each
reform goes through three stages: one year for creation, another year
for experimentation, and the third year for large investments. In 2006,
we will start with two subjects; in 2007 there will be a new objective
group-all the natural sciences. Finally, there is a plan to bring the
whole system together and get one final product in 2008.”
Does the new system support or destroy corruption?
G. Melikyan believes that the present educational system has many
flaws. Even if the person is honest and checks the exams, that same
exam can be evaluated by 16, or 18 points because the standards are
very “mixed up”. The new system has to confirm the evaluation
standards. The one day exam will practically exclude the flow of
information. There must not be specialists of the given subject in the
exam room. The questions will not be formatted 2-3 three days before.
“Let’s suppose that the exam starts at 9 a.m. The computer will format
the test version 10 minutes before the exam starts,” said Mr. Melikyan
and added that there will be less corruption through the methods used.