Dmitry Medvedev proposed that the Education and Science Ministry work out a strategy for a painless abolition of the Unified State Exam, and schools in the Siberian Federal District will serve as the test site. The decision, the president said, was made after numerous letters from schoolchildren asking to cancel the unified state exam. Meanwhile, a VTsIOM poll showed that 97.6 percent of students oppose the Unified State Exam, and most admitted they deliberately disrupted practice exams to influence teachers attitudes toward the reform.

Yesterday, the Ministry of Education and Science held a meeting chaired by Dmitry Medvedev. The President of the Russian Federation suggested that the ministry officials think through a strategy for a painless abolition of the Unified State Exam in Russian educational institutions. At the same meeting, it was decided that the schools of the Siberian Federal District, first and foremost those in the Irkutsk and Novosibirsk regions and Krasnoyarsk Krai, would become the experimental site for eliminating the Unified State Exam.
In his Internet blog, Dmitry Medvedev admitted that he made this decision as a result of numerous letters addressed to him by students asking for the Unified State Exam to be canceled.
According to the results of a survey conducted among schoolchildren by the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion and published the day before, 97.6% of students are against the introduction of the unified state exam.
In response to the VCIOM question “what measures did you personally take to have the Unified State Exam canceled,” most schoolchildren (86.5%) answered that, by mutual agreement, they deliberately completed the tasks of practice exams incorrectly. As a result, most of the class received “unsatisfactory” grades, which caused panic among the teaching staff and sowed doubts among teachers about the advisability of introducing the Unified State Exam in schools.
- Thus, Russian schoolchildren have shown themselves to be masters of psychological pressure, - concludes the head of VCIOM, Pankraty Panteleev.
One can only guess what exactly the schoolchildren wrote to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, since as a result of their letters it was nevertheless decided to abolish the unified state exam.
At present, the Ministry of Education and Science is developing the relevant measures to carry out the will of the president (and Russian schoolchildren) on an emergency basis.