OPORA has started monitoring the admission campaign

The OPORA Civil Network has started public monitoring of the 2010 admissions campaign in 25 higher education institutions of Ukraine. The purpose of the monitoring is to collect and disseminate information on the quality and transparency of admissions, and to protect citizens' rights to equal access to education. On July 15, the acceptance of documents to higher education institutions began, which will end on July 31. Unlike last year, when applicants had a month to decide on an educational institution and submit documents, in 2010 only 2 weeks are allotted for the procedure. Because of this, in the very first days OPORA observers recorded significant queues that began forming from 4 a.m. Hot weather and shortened registration deadlines provoked chaos near admissions committees, applicants fainted in stuffy corridors, and standing in line outside took on average up to 9 hours. Unfortunately, most higher education institutions were not ready for the influx of applicants. For example, at I.Ya. Horbachevsky Ternopil State Medical University, only 100 applications were accepted on the first day, while the queue numbered about 600 people. Only 5 people process documents, and each person's throughput per day does not exceed 20 applicants. The largest number of complaints to OPORA's hotline concerned Kyiv National University of Trade and Economics. On July 15, one of the applicants stood in line for 10 hours. She planned to submit documents for 2 specialties at once, which is permitted by the Admission Conditions. However, the admissions committee refused her and suggested she write an application for only 1 specialty, and come back the next day, stand in the same queue, and submit documents for the other. According to observers, this is a direct violation of the applicant's rights. Parents also complain about this educational institution because the admissions committee works until 17:00, while the working day lasts until 18:00. Therefore, OPORA calls on the management of the mentioned higher education institution to streamline the work of the admissions committee and extend its working hours until 20:00. OPORA is also being contacted regarding refusals to accept documents from those applicants who have written appeals for review of the results of external independent evaluation to the relevant commission of the Ukrainian Center for Educational Quality Assessment. According to OPORA observers, this is also a violation, since regulatory documents do not prohibit submitting valid results and then, in the event of an improved result, clarifying the data with the admissions committee. At Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University, there were also large crowds on the first day of the admissions campaign. However, the university's admissions committee, despite the heavy workload, was able to accept documents from all applicants who wished to submit them. Thus, on July 15, Lesya Ukrainka VNU accepted 1,530 applications from entrants. Although the admissions committee had to work until 23:00 that day. In the following days, the admissions committee sped up the procedure for accepting documents from entrants by organizing consultations on writing applications in free classrooms. Conditions were also created for entrants to familiarize themselves with the admission conditions to the higher education institution — relevant information materials were placed outside near the university. Since OPORA's hotline receives many inquiries about when applicants will be sent certificates with results, we inform you that each testing participant received certificates in hand even before the external independent evaluation began. Applicants presented this same document in order to enter the testing point (together with a passport), and also provided it to authorized persons for a mark (stamp) confirming completion of the assessment. No additional documents will be sent to applicants. Testing results must be printed independently from the personal page on the website of the Ukrainian Center for Educational Quality Assessment, which is the necessary supplement to the certificate. The data in the supplement will be verified by the admissions committee against the UCEQA database. Free legal assistance or reporting a violation is available via the multi-channel "hotline" number of the OPORA Civil Network (044) 225 32 81

Contact persons: Head of the OPORA Civil Network Board: Olha Aivazovska, 063 617 97 50 Regional coordinator in Volyn Oblast: Mykhailo Shelep, 067 416 50 86