Migrants were offered to take the OGE in the Russian language: “A strange idea”

The World Russian People’s Council took up arms against migrant workers

At the World Russian People’s Council (VRNC) held in Moscow, a number of statements were made on how to solve problems with migrants. In particular, they suggested that all new arrivals “take a Russian language exam for the 9th grade level.” “MK” was convinced that “approximately none” of the guest workers would pass such an exam.

The theme of this year’s meeting was “The Present and Future of the Russian World.” The speakers, among whom were scientists, politicians, and public figures, paid a lot of attention to the problem of the influx of migrants. Who, not wanting to integrate into our society, “change the appearance of Russian cities.”

As a countermeasure against illegal migration in Russia, ethnic crime and other negative aspects of the influx of a large number of newcomers, Deputy Chairman of the VRNS Konstantin Malofeev proposed introducing a Russian language exam for them “for the 9th grade level.”

“Why can’t our citizen work if he didn’t pass the ninth grade exam at age 15, but, for example, a 30-year-old migrant who can’t pass Russian at the third grade level gets a job?” – Malofeev argued his position. And he added that this state of affairs leads to “discrimination against our citizens.”

Let us remind you that in Russian schools after the 9th grade they take the OGE – a general state exam. This is the level of general secondary education in Russia, according to the principle of “necessary and sufficient.” The Unified State Exam is taken after graduating from high school for admission to universities.

As for the countries from which “working hands” mainly come to Russia, they have adopted different education systems and different scoring systems for assessing knowledge. In Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, for example, basic secondary education, like in Russia, takes 9 years, in Kyrgyzstan 8. In Armenia, Kazakhstan and Moldova, a ten-point knowledge assessment system has been adopted. How in Russia they will bring all this under the denominator of the OGE in the Russian language is not very clear.

“But the main thing is that in no other country in the world do visitors, let’s say, pass an exam on the level of language proficiency on an equal basis with the local population,” says Galina Satgieva, a teacher at an international university. – Of course, we also take Russian as a foreign language. We have long-standing and improved developments of what a language exam in Russian as a foreign language should be. Sample assignments can be found on the FIPI website. Tasks of three levels are proposed for different purposes, the most difficult ones are for obtaining a residence permit. If there is such a social demand, these tasks can be improved. Both knowledge of the language and history, as well as the fundamentals of Russian law. But equating the knowledge of a Russian 9th grader with a visiting specialist is a very strange idea.

“MK” compared tasks for foreign citizens speaking Russian and the OGE in the Russian language for the 9th grade. And I came to the conclusion that the methodological recommendations for foreigners (developed at the beginning of the 2000s), in terms of complexity, are somewhere at the level of 3-4th grade in a Russian elementary school.

For example, a task on adverbs: “Tell, (…) repairs are starting – which, where, when (insert as necessary). Or this task: “You can buy furniture in a store”: books, trousers, a table. Also: who will you go (to visit): brother, brother, brother…

For comparison, OGE assignments in the Russian language for 2023. Syntactic analysis: replace the phrase “goal of life”, built on the basis of management, with a synonymous phrase with the connection agreement. Next: analysis of means of expressiveness – indicate the numbers of sentences in which an epithet acts as a means of expressive speech. Lexical analysis: find all synonyms for the word “skiff”.

In general, if we equate the knowledge of Russian ninth-graders and visiting migrants, no one will pass the exam. It would not be better to strengthen control over the issuance of language proficiency certificates and patents. After all, often this action has nothing to do with exams.