Graduates and the famous zero: Both education and parents fail the exam

The Ministry of Education and the Examination Center have established beyond dispute that hundreds of students cheated during the external matriculation exam in Montenegrin, Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian language and literature.

This was confirmed to the "News" from several unofficial sources in the education sector.

The interlocutors also claim that the students used mobile phones, that they exchanged messages on the group of students on the Viber platform, that those who took the exam in the same classrooms had the same mistakes on the test, but also the same correct answers. Those students were in the same classroom during the exam. According to unofficial information, most of these tests came from schools in the north.

For some groups of students in the central part of Montenegro, the teachers - test administrators, who went beyond their competence and obligations and suggested to the students to correct the answer, which the majority of the students did, created a problem. It cost them the exam.

All these students received 0 points, and according to the information from yesterday morning, they were supposed to take the remedial exam in August.

That decision was being reviewed last night, and the Test Center was suggested to have their assessors re-review the tests from 11 April, so the new results should be known soon.

Minister of Education Miomir Vojinović decided to take this step after talking with representatives of students and parents yesterday afternoon.

More than a hundred of them spent the day in front of the building and in the hall of the Ministry, explaining to journalists that the education department is allegedly "playing with the future of their children".

"We are here at the Examination Center to support our children, we invite all parents and children to come inside, we invite Minister Vojinović, who took the future of our children into his hands. We will not leave the Examination Center until the minister addresses us," said Slađana Knežević, representative of parents of high school students from Žabljak.

She added that according to the unofficial information that students have, 533 students received 0 points on the CSBH test.

"No one warned them during the exam. Their phones were confiscated before the exam began. "Montenegro experienced the biggest humiliation yesterday because the education system was threatened, and the dreams of the generation of 2004 were taken away," Knežević said.

The agreement between the parents and the minister was made official last night by the Director General of the Directorate for General Secondary and Vocational Education and Lifelong Learning, Slobodan Savović.

"It is recommended to the Examination Center that the committee for evaluating tests in Montenegrin-Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian language and literature, re-evaluates the tests of students who did not pass the exam in the specified subject," said Savović in an address to the media.

The external matriculation exam from CSBH was held on April 11, and all graduates took the same test, on the same day, at the same time.

According to earlier media reports, they were also organized into the Viber group "Druženje", where they shared questions and answers. Screenshots of their correspondence during the exam "leaked" to the public earlier.

This year, the examination center and the Ministry of Education had to postpone the external test in mathematics for high school graduates to another date because the test reached the students before the start of the knowledge test.

The Basic State Prosecutor's Office in Rožaje, following a report from the Examination Center and the Ministry, is checking how it happened.