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Students Talk about Violations of their Rights

August 26, 2006
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The entrance examinations have already finished and the process of appeals has started. Some of the students are unsatisfied by the exam results and talk about their suspicions. According to the students, their marks were reduced in the foreign language exams, after the tests were remarked. They think that this was no accident.

According to several students, they received the highest scores (85-95%) in the foreign language tests, however, later they found out that mistakes had been made during the marking of the tests and new test scores have now been published.

“We received the highest scores in foreign languages and were sure, that the final score would be enough to be admitted to the universities. Our scores were published on the web-page as well and we were waiting for final list to be published. However, we found out, that the tests in foreign language needed rechecking. We are sure that the mistakes were not made accidentally. They helped other students, in which they were interested, to be admitted and that is why they changed the scores. The final list should have been published before the 20th of August, but has not been made public yet. We are demanding the list almost every day, but they say it is not ready yet. Is this not a violation of our rights, we are asking you?” – say the students.

We checked this information with the National Assessment and Examinations Centre. Maia Gabunia, PR manager of the centre confirmed that the problems occurred while marking the foreign language tests, but everything is now resolved.

Maia Gabunia: “The fifth and sixth exercises were rechecked in the foreign language test. A mistake was made during the description of the exercise and students rewrote the whole text instead of writing only phrases with the correct form of the verbs. We are talking only about students, who wrote the correct form of the verb, but also rewrote the whole text.”

The students are protesting and saying that those changes caused a reduction in their scores. Gabunia is not denying that some changes have been made. According to her: “The changes occurred after remarking the tests. The scores of students, who had written the correct form of the verb in the tests, have increased. This had an impact on the scores of every student and their scores were reduced.”

Students discovered other violations as well and now plead to the committee of appeal. According to them, they answered several questions correctly; however their answers were disregarded. 522 appeals were submitted in Tbilisi and 160 in the regions. Consideration of the appeals started on the 19th of August.

Representatives of the National Assessment and Examinations Centre do not know when the final results will be published. “At first the results of the tests were published, and then the appeals are considered and only after that are the final results made public. Nobody knows exactly when it will happen. It is too early to talk about student admissions,” says Gabunia.

Eka Gulua

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