Urals Residents Debate Need for Unified State Exam for Schoolchildren

In the State Duma, there were calls for a review of the education system and the possible cancellation of the Unified State Exam. Vice Speaker of the lower house of parliament Pyotr Tolstoy stated that the system, copied from Western standards, needs to be changed by returning to traditional graduation and entrance exams.

The reaction to this initiative was found out through a survey among local residents. The responses obtained were divided into two opposing camps.

Significant portion of respondents supported the idea of canceling the Unified State Exam and the Basic State Exam. Their arguments can be reduced to several key theses:

• «We should just cancel it and not come up with anything else; there»s no need to stress children out from a young age. Who needs it — in reality, everything works without exams.«
• »Endless trial Unified State Exams, and meanwhile, the whole school isn«t learning.»
• «This is the right decision! The Unified State Exam urgently needs to be replaced with exams that truly confirm the knowledge acquired in school... if we don»t remove the Basic State Exam and Unified State Exam, we will continue to reap the fruits of illiteracy of future generations.«
• »Of course, it should be canceled. Quadcopter pilots and TikTokers have grown up. 7th grade — and welcome to vocational professions, otherwise they«re used to sitting on the »internet«.»

However, many voices were also heard in defense of the existing system. Supporters of the Unified State Exam present their counterarguments:

• «It»s scary what they might come up with instead of the Unified State Exam...«
• »An entire education system and generation have grown up with the Unified State Exam; it«s not so easy to just cancel it.»
• «The Unified State Exam is a cool exam that gives a person a lot of opportunities. Don»t scare your children... Study, comrades, and everything will work out.«
• »It«s better to take the Unified State Exam once than to have exams in school first and then a bunch of special exams for each university...»
• «Don»t cancel it. Those who prepare get high scores on the Unified State Exam. Those who don«t prepare get low scores. It»s all fair.«

Thus, the debate around the Unified State Exam remains heated: some see it as a cause of stress and a decline in knowledge levels, while others see it as a convenient and objective tool for university admission.