The State Duma rejected the bill on the abolition of the Unified State Exam

During the plenary session on April 2, deputies of the State Duma rejected an inter-factional bill that proposes to return final exams in school subjects instead of the Unified State Exam (USE).

In the explanatory note to the draft, its authors note that the Unified State Exam system has not achieved its desired goals: the level of school education has not increased, and the field of Olympiads and tutoring services has been filled with corruption components.

In this regard, the deputies proposed changes to improve the quality of students' education, to give their knowledge an objective assessment, as well as to form an examination system taking into account the individual skills of schoolchildren.

The authors of the project also note that the USE format causes excessive psychological stress among students, requires large financial expenditures from parents and the state, and is focused not on developing analytical thinking, but simply on "training" for testing.

The document was submitted to the State Duma in June 2024, and its authors were representatives of the Liberal Democratic Party, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the SRDP ("Fair Russia — Patriots for Truth").

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On March 28, Anastasia Yekushevskaya, academic director of the Skysmart online school, told Izvestia how to effectively use the remaining time to prepare for the Unified State Exam and minimize stress. According to her, if a student decides to prepare in a short period of two to three months, it is better for him to focus on one subject in order to achieve a good result. In order to get everything done accurately, the expert advised making a schedule: distribute the workload on each topic for the weeks remaining before the exam.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said that the Unified State Exam system works, although it has drawbacks. At the same time, thanks to this system, young people from the periphery have become significantly more likely to enroll in leading universities in the country. However, it is true that the USE mechanism must be improved, the head of state stated in February 2024, delivering a message to the Federal Assembly.