CN OPORA commenced the public monitoring of admissions in 2010 in 25 higher educational institutions of Ukraine. The purpose of monitoring is to collect and disseminate information on the quality and transparency of admission, protection of citizens' rights to equal access to education.

July, 15 was the first day of admission of documents to the universities, which ends on July 31. Unlike last year, when applicants have a month to decide on the institution they will submit documents to, in 2010 the procedure will last for only 2 weeks. Therefore, in the first days OPORA observers recorded significant queues that started forming from 4 am. Hot weather and reduced registration time  caused chaos near the admissions committees, students lost consciousness in the stuffy corridors and had to stand in line outside up to 9 hours.

Unfortunately, most universities were not prepared for an influx of entrants. For example, in the Ternopil State Medical University of I.Horbachevskyy yesterday only 100 applications were registered, while the queue consisted of about 600 people. Only 5 persons are working with documents, the capacity of each per day does not exceed 20 applicants. However, today the situation has not changed: the queue is even larger, and there are still 5 responsible persons.

The majority of complaints to the hot line of OPORA were from Kyiv National Trade and Economic University. Yesterday, on July 15, one of the applicants stood in line for 10 hours. She planned to apply immediately for 2 specialties as it’s allowed by the admission terms. However, the admission board rejected it and proposed to write an application on one specialty, to come again the next day, wait in the same place, apply for another one. According to observers, this is a direct violation of  rights. Also, on July 16 the queue in this university consisted of  3040 persons. Parents on the street were trying to fix the situation and began drawing up a list of entrants, but the admission board stressed that no lists are valid and they are ready to call the police to stop their unauthorized assembly. As a result, those applicants who are for the second day trying to get into university, bashed with newcomers who plan to go there in the queue. This led to scandals and fights. Also, parents complain, because admission committee is open until 17:00, while the workday lasts until 18:00. Therefore, OPORA encourages the authorities of the mentioned universities to organize work of a commission and extend the time to 20:00.

OPORA is also applied to in cases of refusals to accept documents for those students who have written appeals to review the results of the commission of the Ukrainian Center for Educational Quality Assessment on the results of independent assessment. Observers of OPORA consider it also a violation because regulations do not prohibit to submit valid results, then, if results were improved, to update data in the admission committee.

The hotline of OPORA receives a lot of questions about when applicants get their certificates with the results. We announce that each participant received a test certificate before the EIT. This document should be shown by entrants in order to get to the testing point (along with passport) as well as provided to authorized for placing a mark (stamp) on completion of evaluation. No additional documents will be sent to entrants. Test results are to be printed on their own from the personalized page on the website of the Ukrainian Center for Educational Quality Evaluation, which is the necessary complement to the certificate. Data in Appendix will be checked in admission board with the database of UCEQE.

You can get free legal assistance or complain about violations on multi-channel hotline of the CN OPORA (044) 225 32 81.

Contact person:
Olha Ayvazovska
063 617 97 50