The non-governmental association Prosvjetna zajednica and the Parents' Association submitted a letter to Acting Supreme State Prosecutor Tatjana Begović, as well as to the Ministry of Public Administration - Chief Administrative Inspector, in which they request an urgent examination of the assessment procedure for matriculation/professional exams organized during the academic year 2022/23. year, especially for the subject CSBH language and literature, "due to suspicions of irregularities that accompanied it".
"In this regard, we ask you to determine the responsibility of the Ministry of Education, the State Commission for the Matriculation Examination, the test administrator, the coordinator, the director of the high school whose students got 0 on the test, as well as the Examination Center that ordered the hiring of new assessors. In addition, we invite you to review who is responsible for organizational failures and gross violations of jurisdiction during the external assessment of the knowledge of 9th grade elementary school students in the subject Mathematics, which was supposed to be held on April 20. In connection with this case, the Elementary State Prosecutor's Office in Rožaje formed the case almost two months ago," states the letter signed by Kristina Mihailović from the Association of Parents and Olivera Leković from the Educational Community.
They point out that, immediately after taking the test for CSBH language and literature, "evidence of copying" appeared in the public within the Viber group "Druženje", which was immediately informed by the representatives of the Examination Center administration and the Ministry of Education.
"Apart from them, the director of the Junior High School 'Danilo Kiš' from Budva, Krsto Vuković, also submitted this information and evidence (screenshots from the group) to the media, which then informed the public. of the high school graduates had answers that indicated rewriting, on the basis of which they requested additional instructions from the State Matriculation Commission, the Ministry of Education and the Examination Center on how to proceed in this case. They claim that after several unsuccessful attempts to request instructions by email, they received an answer at a meeting which was attended by the chief evaluator to mark the tests of those students separately, that is, to record what they observed on each one. They submitted that information to the Commission for the Matriculation/Professional Examination," it added.
They remind that, according to the regulations on the method, procedure and time of taking the matriculation and professional exams, any use of illegal means leads to disqualification, about which the students were informed verbally before the start of the exam, as well as with a written warning on the initial pages of the test.
"When the results were announced, the disputed tests had 0 points, which is why the high school graduates and their parents came to the Examination Center and insisted on gaining insight into the tests. We all witnessed unpleasant scenes where several hundred high school graduates and their parents were allowed to enter the building of the Examination Center center. On that day, they were also received by the Minister of Education, who is the head of the State Matriculation Commission. Soon after, the public was informed by a statement from the Ministry of Education that the decision of the State Matriculation Commission recommended to the Examination Center that the evaluators re-evaluate the tests of students who did not pass the exam in this subject. According to the evaluators, they were contacted to re-evaluate the tests they refused," the memo reads.
A few days later, they remind, the Government dismissed the director and the Board of Directors of the Examination Center, as well as the chief evaluator, due to non-fulfillment of legally established obligations and decisions of competent state authorities.
"After that, the government ordered the new acting director of the Examination Center to hire a new Commission, i.e. evaluators, which was done, and then within two days, that Commission re-examined and evaluated the contested tests. According to the media, which was also confirmed by the mother of one of the students who primarily received a 0, the graduates were satisfied with the new grades. The media reported that some of them received fours and fives instead of zeros. The members of the Commission, i.e. the evaluators who found irregularities, indicate that the Examination Center did not comply with legal procedures and that new evaluators were hired who were not trained for that job," the memo reads.
At the same time, they add, the preliminary results of the English test were published, for which "there was also evidence of copying, but none of the students were disqualified."
In the letter, Mihailović and Leković appeal to investigate the procedures of the organization of the matriculation/professional exam and for the authorities to help stop the "absurdity of the entire procedure, which was in full view of the entire public this school year."
"If, according to your estimations, the Association of Parents and the Educational Community can contribute to the procedure, please contact us, and it is important for us to know that there are evaluators who have identified irregularities and representatives of school administrations and professional and non-governmental organizations who are at your disposal. supported this request," it said.
Four appeals were addressed in the letter to the Chief Administrative Inspector.
"In accordance with the above, we ask you to: Review the work and competence of the State Matriculation Commission in the June exam period (minutes and conclusions, failure to respond to four emails from the Evaluation Commission, which they appointed, work with an incomplete composition); Determine how zeros appeared on the website of the Exam Center as final grades (the Grading Regulations do not provide for such a grade); Determine whether the only valid Commission received any notice to terminate their Service Agreement valid until June 30; Determine whether the new grades are justified in knowledge and the Law (They were evaluated by people who did not undergo training and had to, the tests must only be scored in a room that is dedicated to that in the Examination Center and has video surveillance, can I prove that they did not copy our scoring due to speed of the work done because it is impossible to correctly score such a number of tests in 48 hours, given that no reconciliation was carried out, which must last one day with the mandatory presence of the main evaluator)", the document states.
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