The procedure of awarding high school graduates with gold medals, that provides chances to get government-paid seats at the university without examinations, was often subjective and fraught with corruption. At many occasions, gold medals were awarded to those students whose parents paid money, but not to those who studied hard. Such a practice left many bright students from less well-off families without an opportunity to get higher education, as their parents could not pay university tuition fees. Bribing was becoming an accepted norm, as it was almost impossible to be accepted to prestigious programs at the university unless one has given a bribe to the school staff.

In 2001, the Ministry of Education and Culture, headed by Camilla Sharshekeeva at that time, initiated a series of reforms, aimed at eradicating corruption in the education sphere of the republic. The practice of granting gold medals was immediately eliminated at all the country’s high schools. An alternative new system of distribution of government grants for higher education has been worked out. With the financial support from the US Agency for International Development through its EDNET project and with the administrative support from ACCELS (American Council for Collaboration in Education and Language Study), the Ministry of Education has developed a new system of graduate entrance examinations. Together with ETS (Educational Testing Service) in Princeton, ACCELS has designed a SAT-type verbal and quantitative aptitude test that is to be offered in Kyrgyz, Uzbek and Russian.

An independent testing body, separate from the Ministry of Education and Culture, was established to hold annual tests and grant students, based on their test results, with state tuitions to study in the republic’s higher education establishment on their choice. In June 2002, the first National Merit Scholarship Test (NMST) was held to examine the knowledge of more than 13,600 high school graduates and to award 5,103 state scholarships to different Kyrgyzstani universities. This year, more than 35, 200 students took part in testing to compete for 5, 085 budgeted places at state institutions of higher education in Kyrgyzstan.

Many observers are very optimistic about the implementation of the republican scholarship testing as it provides fair, transparent and equal opportunities for all Kyrgyzstani youth to higher education. The new testing system helps to show the real level of knowledge independently from grades in high school diploma. It enables bright and talented students from poor families to continue their education. In addition, the unified testing also helps to monitor the educational level throughout the regions of Kyrgyzstan. In her interview with the author, the initiator of the program Camilla Sharshekeeva, currently the provost of the American University of Central Asia, said that the NMST might not have rooted out corruption in the admission process to higher education on the whole, but it definitely has eliminated corruption in the process of state scholarship distribution.

Maria Utyaganova, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.