Quiet threesomes: why the ministries do not advertise the statistics of the OGE

At the beginning of September, it seemed time to forget the exams like a bad dream and calmly gnaw on the granite of the new academic year. But it was not there. Behind only the noisy battles of the Unified State Examination, the admissions campaign and additional recruitment, the younger brother of the unified exam, known as the OGE (main state exam), was forgotten. And retakes have just begun on it, which will end on September 15th.

It’s strange, what kind of exams can there be if classes and study groups in colleges and schools are already recruited? But before understanding the intricacies of admission “after the ninth”, “MK” decided to remember everything about the OGE.

General state exams are taken after the end of the 9th grade. This is the same general secondary education, which is guaranteed by law. All children should receive it, and parents and schools should provide it. The OGE (as well as the Unified State Examination, however) is 4 exams. Two compulsory ones: mathematics and Russian, and two additional ones at the student’s choice. There is also the GVE (state final exam), a lightweight form of the OGE for children with disabilities in health and development. The tasks on the exam are the same, but more time is given to complete them. And there is only one additional exam – that is, the OGE consists of 3 exams.

In terms of the procedure for conducting and organizing the OGE, it is similar to the USE. The same foreign school and unfamiliar inspectors (at the GVE, after a series of scandals, special children are examined in familiar conditions). The same frames, cameras and control and measuring tasks. The OGE is also evaluated in a point system according to the level of literacy and other special criteria, and then transferred to an assessment on a five-point scale. Moreover, the rounding of the results usually goes down, and in general, the interpretation of the results is not in the interests of the student.

Now those ninth-graders who received “failed” in one or two OGEs are retaking exams. Those who have not passed three or four exams have the right to come and take it again in a year. Or graduate from school with a certificate of completed general secondary education instead of a certificate. Contrary to popular belief, with such a document, it’s not straight to movers, laborers or janitors – there are secondary specialized educational institutions, colleges and schools where they are admitted after the 9th grade without a certificate.

Deciding to get acquainted with the summary data on the early and main stages of the OGE this year, “MK” was convinced that this was not easy. Even the relevant departments do not particularly report on the USE, but they are trumpeting the success of the USE with might and main. “Even before, the results of the OGE were not spoiled,” says Maria Kucherova, an expert in the field of education. Or maybe it’s because the results of the main exam, in general, are not brilliant, but rather satisfactory. It turns out according to the classics – quiet threesomes.

If we talk about the arithmetic mean, then out of half a million 9th graders, 150 thousand received “3” for exams. There were 150,000 “fours”, 100,000 “fives”, and 50,000 losers. This is despite the fact that the OGE is not at all the Unified State Examination in terms of complexity, there is an opinion that anyone can pass it. If only I knew what color the textbook was…

Subject-specific statistics and the spread of data by region, of course, are clearer than the “average for the hospital”. The departments recognize that the best results were shown by residents of the central regions, especially Moscow and St. Petersburg. Worst of all wrote the general state examination on the outskirts of the country. This year’s results in the Novosibirsk region made a splash. Despite the academic city nearby, the majority of students there graduated from high school with “3” or barely reached the “fours”. Well, in the “average for the OGE”, the marks are as follows: compulsory mathematics and Russian pulled 4 and 3.7 points, respectively. History 3.5 points, literature 3.2 points. Best of all, according to the statistics of grades and overcoming the threshold score, in 2023 they passed English and computer science, and worst of all they wrote physics and social studies.

So, who and why is retaking the state now, at the beginning of the next academic year, in the additional period for the OGE on September 4–15? Firstly, admission to some colleges, technical schools and colleges continues on purpose until October. And so do dreams that fly past college in the hope of enrolling. Secondly, pre-professional classes attract, where you can get only with a good grade in a profile subject. A good rating in this case is higher than “satisfactory”.

By law, the school does not have the right to refuse admission to a 9th grader in high school, even with all the “triples” in the OGE, because these are not “bad luck”. But if admission to the 10th and 11th grades is conducted on a competitive basis or the class has a specialization: international, medical, IT, humanitarian, etc., then this is already a legitimate reason for refusing admission. Foreign language, chemistry-biology, computer science and Russian literature are also becoming core subjects and must be written in “four” or “five”. And for admission, they must be retaken.

But the best thing, of course, is participation in an Olympiad of the payroll such as the Higher School of Education or an international one – then the student is exempted from participating in the OGE in a specialized subject, “five” is given to him automatically. And they are accepted with open arms to any special class or “difficult” specialized school.

Started “dopa” in mathematics on September 4th. On the 7th, the second exam will be Russian, on September 12 – history, biology, physics and geography. On September 15, schoolchildren will retake social studies, chemistry, computer science and ICT, literature and foreign languages. The results are usually not delayed, the term for announcing the results is 1-2 days.

But that’s not all: from September 19 to September 23, there are reserve days for passing and retaking the OGE. Another opportunity to retake for those who fell ill on the day of the re-examination or were mistreated by observers or members of the commission working on the exam. We can say that the final result of the OGE-2023 will be summed up only by September 25.

Published in the newspaper “Moskovsky Komsomolets” No. 29108 dated September 6, 2023

Newspaper headline:
OGE in the fall count