Russians do not allow children from occupied territories to take National Multi-Subject Test – Minister of Education and Science of Ukraine

Mykhailo Zahorodnii, Ukrainska Pravda. Zhyttia - 8 August 2022

The Russians are exerting pressure and not allowing Ukrainian school-leavers from the occupied territories to take the National Multi-Subject Test (NMT).

Serhii Shkarlet, the Minister of Education and Science, said during a national newscast on 8 August that because of this, the exact number of children who will enter Ukrainian institutions of higher education from the occupied territories is currently unknown.

"In the occupied territories, there have been cases of children being harassed and not allowed to take the National Multi-Subject Test.

Unfortunately, we were unable to organise NMT sessions in the occupied territories because the Russian occupiers didn’t allow us to even talk about studying according to Ukrainian standards," he said.

At the same time, Shkarlet emphasised that the vast majority of parents, pupils, teachers and students had refused to study according to Russian narratives.

The Ministry of Education and Science says that students from the occupied territories still have the opportunity to take the multidisciplinary test during an additional special session, but it is only possible to take it in territories controlled by Ukraine.

"At the moment we do not know how many school-leavers from the temporarily occupied territories have already taken the NMT.

We have not collected this data for the sake of the children's safety, because there they rigorously monitor any manifestations of Ukrainianism, to the point of physical torture, which is applied to students and pupils," Shkarlet said.

This year, children from the occupied territories can take part in competitive selection for universities based on the results of a remote face-to-face session in the form of an oral interview instead of the NMT.

According to the results of the main session, 187,345 applicants in 250 settlements of Ukraine and 40 cities of Europe took the simplified External Independent Evaluation.

During the main session of the NMT, a record number of children scored 200 points [the maximum possible score] according to the test results.

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