MATURA "UNDER THE SAME ROOF"

Amendments to the Law on the Fundamentals of Education System envisage the extension of the competencies of the Examination Centre. Thus, from 2023, the state matura will be "under the same roof" because the preparation and implementation of the state matura will be in the competence of only one institution - the Institute for Education Quality and Evaluation.

Amendments to the Law, development of new standards of achievement, a continuation of the consultation process with faculties and preparations for new piloting are the most critical activities that are being realised this fall within the preparations for the introduction of the state matura - said representatives of institutions at a media workshop on November 17, 2021, organised in Belgrade.

The workshop aimed to acquaint representatives of national media with various aspects of the state matura and the roles of institutions in its preparation and implementation because the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development and the State Matura Project see the media as crucial partners in communicating and forming public attitudes about education and building trust in the state matura exam.

 - The state matura is one of the essential steps in implementing the Education Development Strategy until 2030. Preparations are extensive, but we are working gradually. In June, the Law on Secondary Education and the Law on Higher Education were amended, because these are the two levels of education that the state matura touches - the matura is the end of secondary education, and through it, we have an influence on higher education without entrance exams. The changes in the law enabled us to say that it is inevitable that the state matura will be introduced in the school year 2023/24 - said Mrs Marijana Dukić Mijatović, PhD, State Secretary at the Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development.

Amendments to the Law on the Fundamentals of Education System should be adopted in early December. An important novelty brought by the changes in the umbrella law is that the Examination Centre in the Institute for Education Quality and Evaluation will conduct the state matura.

- The law also prescribes when the Centre will start working because a period has been left for preparations. The Examination Centre should take over part of its obligations in 2022/23. year, which coincides with the introduction of the final exam at the end of three years of secondary education. The Centre will take over all competencies in the year 2023/24, when the implementation of the state matura begins. In the meantime, within the preparations, we will work as before - together, with the support of the State Matura Project - explained Mr Zoran Kostic, special advisor to the Minister of Education.

The Examination Centre already has a part of the competencies for the state matura when it comes to general education subjects, i.e. general and artistic matura. With the proposed amendments to the Law, the Centre also prepares and conducts the professional matura and final exam, which has been done so far by the Institute for the Improvement of Education.

- To ensure the quality of implementation of activities, the Examination centre will have to provide additional resources - first of all, we are talking about hiring new coordinators, who will prepare tasks and construct tests for all exams with external associates, and then employing additional capacities in technical and other support services. Of course, it is necessary to first train people in the Centre to prepare for that job, and then external associates will also be trained - task writers, reviewers, evaluators. These activities will take place gradually, during 2022 and 2023. The challenges are significant, but we will work as before - seriously and professionally, and we believe that in the end, we will achieve high quality in this complex process of organising and conducting the state graduation exam - briefly presented plans and future activities Mrs Kata Simić Mišić, head of the Examination Centre.

The Institute for the Improvement of Education will also provide support to the Examination Centre to prepare the state matura.

- The IIE has a Centre for Professional Development of Employees in Education and will undoubtedly use all its resources to conduct systemic training for all teachers working in secondary education. All resources will be used to train teachers to run the state matura exam - said Mrs Maja Todorović from the Institute for the Advancement of Education.

Another type of support is related to writing assignments for the vocational matura.

-  The IIE has been conducting the vocational matura for more than ten years - it is not as big a novelty in vocational schools as it will be in gymnasiums, except that it has had only certification character so far. Until now, students in secondary vocational schools have taken a very serious vocational matura, which consisted of two parts: a practical task written in the Institute, and through which students demonstrated practical knowledge and skills acquired during schooling and a theoretical test that examines specific theoretical knowledge required for further study and work in the profession. This concept will undergo certain changes, especially when it comes to the theoretical test, because it now takes on a selection character and other tests at the state matura. The Centre for Vocational and Adult Education will provide all professional support to the future Examination Centre, especially in creating practical tasks, because practical tasks are created for each educational profile and for all that is provided by the qualification standard. In that sense, we are strong support and all the experiences we have during the previous ten years will be put in the function of the future Examination Centre – Mrs Maja Todorović explained the plans in more detail.

In addition to the activities of the Centre, the amendments to the law also regulate objections to exams that have not been for high school so far, and a unique article is envisaged regarding the protection of personal data and data processing through the IT system that is being prepared.

Along with the changes in the law, the announcement of the second piloting of the state matura exam, which should take place at the beginning of April 2022, also caused a great deal of attention among journalists. This piloting will also be used to check the procedures and the quality of the tasks. All fourth-grade students from all secondary schools in Serbia will participate in the piloting, and special attention is paid not only to the preparation of tasks and tests, but also to students' motivation, so that the analysis of results provides relevant and reliable information on the quality of tasks.

- We are talking to the faculties to give them some tasks from the prepared bank of tasks to give to the candidates at their entrance exams. If we reach an agreement, we can explain to the students that in the simulation of the state matura in April, they will get to know the types of tasks found in the entrance exams in June. The intention is also to enable that after reviewing the piloting tests, all students who do well in the test should have their grade from that subject entered. We will not spoil anything for those who do not do the matriculation test well. On the one hand, the motive that the students will feel the tasks, and on the other hand, they will have the opportunity to improve their grade is, I think, great - Mr Kostić pointed out.

The state matura in Serbia will have a qualification and selection character - it enables the completion of secondary education and enrolment in higher education institutions without an entrance exam. One should not, however, forget another equally important function of the state matura - the evaluative function that will help to assess the overall quality of secondary education.

- We must give quality feedback to schools: how good they are concerning the standards, the state average, or their achievements over the years. You cannot improve the system if you only have an external evaluation of the teaching process, planning process, learning, teaching, but you must have feedback on the quality of what students have achieved - said Mrs Marija Krneta, head of the Group for Secondary General and Art Education at the Ministry of Education.

The analysis of the results of the state graduation exam will enable all secondary schools to receive feedback on how good they are in relation to the average, where their students are in relation to the standard of Serbia, districts, municipalities, but also how much the school grades coincide with the achievements on the external test.

- When we return that information to the teachers, when we return specific considerations to the profession, we can expect that the system will slowly but constantly change for the better - concluded Mrs Marija Krneta.

Describing the preparations for the graduation exam, she pointed out that the Ministry of Education wants to enter all schools because they know that there is distrust in the professional public in ensuring the quality of the process.

- It is necessary for secondary schools to get used to the procedures that are part of the state graduation exam, to include all participants in the procedures and, through piloting in 2022 and testing in 2023, enter 2024 without tensions, knowing that our procedures are safe. We want to test the electronic application for taking the Matura exam; we want to evaluate and scan the tests on one sample - to return the results, revise the tests, and plan new training for reviewers based on them. In other words, to ensure every procedure to the end, so that in that way we would raise the trust in the process and the exam itself to the level that such an exam deserves - said Mrs Marija Krneta.

When it comes to higher education, it enjoys autonomy, and the Ministry cannot and does not want to impose anything on higher education institutions. With the support of the State Matura Project, the Ministry of Education organized several workshops attended by representatives of higher education institutions, surveys were prepared in which the faculties stated what they would envisage as conditions for enrolment, and preliminary analysis has already been done.

- A good part of higher education institutions will introduce some of the most liberal criteria - we will have an evaluation of success during high school, general success at graduation and success in individual subjects whose grade from graduation will be considered when ranking. To be clear, we do not have an entrance exam. We have a state graduation exam. After that, with the results from school, the result at the graduation exam in general and in certain subjects, future newcomers will apply for enrollment in higher education institutions. We will try not to burden the graduates too much - the graduation exam will be extensive, but that is what we want - to show their knowledge at the end of high school - that is the certification part, but also to show them the ticket to higher education - qualification part. We hope that we will have software that will be able to process all that, and when someone writes a wish list for the system to process it, and that we have everything automated - explained Mr Bojan Tubić, PhD, Assistant Minister for Higher Education.

The practice in countries whose systems have been analysed during the preparation of the state matura is that the faculties prescribe the enrolment criteria at least two years in advance.

- With the amendments to the Law on Higher Education that have been in force since July this year, we have obliged higher education institutions to prescribe enrolment criteria for 2024 by August 31, 2022 and inform the Ministry of Education. The Ministry will forward it to all schools. Some vice-deans and deans have expressed disagreement with this system - these are faculty representatives who have more registered candidates in one place - they want the best candidates, and our goal is to enable the best to study what they want. The system will be further developed, but we are close to a solution - the consultation process is ongoing. We will ask the deans not to wait until the end of August, but to submit their enrolment conditions by April to have a general picture of what the faculty is looking for and publish it as soon as possible - conveyed the plans of the Ministry of Education, Mr Tubić.

The Ministry of Education will continue in the coming months to regularly inform the media about the activities within the preparations for the introduction of the state matura.