“No comments were received”: the Ministry of Education and Science responded to a petition to cancel the new system of student assessment

Education in Ukraine underwent serious changes under the influence of the war, which significantly affected the quality of children’s education. Temporary displacement, distance learning, lack of textbooks and psychological challenges have made the process of acquiring knowledge more difficult than ever. However, instead of creating more comfortable conditions for teachers and students, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (MES) is introducing new reforms that outrage teachers and parents.

The most resonant was the adoption of a new system for evaluating learning outcomes for students in grades 5-9, which for the first time since 2011 revises approaches to knowledge evaluation. Teachers and parents strongly criticize the new rules, as they not only do not contribute to the improvement of education, but also make the work of teachers more difficult due to excessive bureaucratic burden. As a result, the teachers initiated a petition to cancel the reform, which quickly gained the necessary 25,000 signatures and forced the government to officially react. The Ministry of Education and Culture responded to the petition.

New guidelines for student assessment

In August 2024, the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine approved new guidelines for evaluating students, which changed the very logic of assigning points. Instead of the traditional assessment of specific tasks and knowledge, groups of learning outcomes that include knowledge, skills, attitudes and values ​​are now to be assessed.

The new assessment guidelines, approved by the Ministry of Education and Science on August 2, 2024, were the first updates since 2011. According to the Ministry of Education and Culture, teachers will now not assess individual tasks, but groups of learning outcomes that cover knowledge, skills, attitudes and values.

Previously, according to the 2011 criteria, the main emphasis was placed on the reproduction of knowledge. If the student demonstrated a certain level of mastery of the material, this could be considered a high achievement. However, the new approach, based on the concept of the “New Ukrainian School” and the State Standard of Basic Secondary Education approved in 2020, takes into account not only knowledge, but also skills, values ​​and attitudes. This means that the assessment will be more comprehensive, and during the performance of one task the teacher can assess several skills at the same time.

The new criteria provide for the use of different types of tasks that correspond to the levels of complexity according to Bloom’s taxonomy. At the initial stage, students have to recognize, recall and reproduce information. Then the tasks become more complicated: they involve highlighting important details, retelling in your own words, analysis and generalization.

Each level of the 12-point evaluation scale is determined taking into account comprehensive skills, including reading comprehension, the ability to express one’s own opinion in oral and written forms, critical and systematic thinking, and the ability to logically justify one’s position. In addition, working with information has become an integral part of every educational field. Students will learn to analyze and use textual, visual and other information not only in language lessons, but also when studying mathematics or art.

The new assessment system takes into account Bloom’s taxonomy, where tasks gradually increase in complexity: from simple recall of facts to deeper analysis and synthesis of knowledge. At the same time, assessments are based on cross-cutting skills such as:

• reading comprehension;
• the ability to express one’s own opinion orally and in writing;
• critical and systemic thinking;
• the ability to logically justify one’s position.

These changes look modern and progressive, but their practical implementation caused a flurry of criticism from teachers and parents.

Petition of teachers and parents

Educators and parents wrote petition, which is published on the government website. It emphasizes that the new evaluation system creates an additional bureaucratic burden that complicates teaching. Teachers are forced not just to evaluate knowledge, but to make more complex reports, to detail evaluations according to various criteria, and to write reference explanations.

The authors of the petition, which received 25,000 votes, demand the cancellation of the changes, because they:

• make the work of teachers more difficult, forcing them to spend more time on documentation than on teaching;
• do not contribute to the real improvement of students’ knowledge, because the formal analysis of skills does not always reflect the actual level of knowledge;
• do not correspond to the realities of the educational process, especially in conditions of war, when many children study remotely or in unstable conditions.

Instead of adapting the educational system to difficult conditions, the Ministry of Education and Culture, according to the teachers, on the contrary complicates their work, which negatively affects both the quality of teaching and the academic achievements of schoolchildren.

How did the Ministry of Education and Culture react

The Ministry of Education and Science provided respond to the petition, noting that the evaluation system is still in the process of approval. The department says that during the 2023-2024 school year, the new approaches were tested in 145 schools, and during this testing “no comments were received regarding an increase in the bureaucratic burden.”

“During the approbation, the teachers noted that the proposed evaluation procedures and criteria create prerequisites for the individualization of education and provide an opportunity to plan high-quality individual work with students.

There were no comments from teachers regarding the additional bureaucratic burden in connection with the introduction of new approaches to knowledge assessment.” – says the text of the response to the petition.

The MES believes that the reform allows for a better individualization of the approach to learning, because the assessment is based on the student’s real skills, and not simply on the ability to reproduce learned knowledge. Despite this, the ministry promised to develop additional clarifications for teachers to make the assessment process easier.

However, this response has not satisfied many educators who believe that the real challenges they face in classrooms are not sufficiently taken into account when developing the reform.

The reform will help or complicate the educational process

At first glance, the competency-based approach to assessment looks modern and progressive. It aims to help students not just memorize facts, but to apply knowledge in practice, think critically and build their own position.

However, in practice, the reform raises many questions:

• Are teachers ready for the new requirements if they have not received enough methodical explanations?
• How to evaluate “values” and “attitudes” if they are subjective concepts?
• Will assessment not become an additional burden, making learning more difficult rather than improving it?

Educators emphasize: the reform can be useful only when it is introduced gradually, with clear explanations, simplified documentation and the possibility of adaptation to the realities of wartime.

Currently, the evaluation reform is more like an experiment, in which teachers act as testers, and students – subjects. And if the Ministry of Education and Culture does not change its approach, the negative reaction of educators can only increase, and the quality of the educational process, on the contrary, deteriorate.