MODERN TECHNOLOGIES AND FORMATION OF HUMAN GOLD
Chapter 3
3.3. ICT and Expansion of Access to Education
Access to ICTs in education is an important indicator of a country's progress in building a civil society. Creation of equal opportunities for all citizens, irrespective of their social status and financial opportunity, is a prerequisite for successful implementation of democratic reforms. Azerbaijan was the first republic of the former Soviet Union to make the political decision in 1992 to conduct common entrance examinations for universities and secondary specialized educational institutions on the basis of a single test exam. The State Commission for Students Admission (SCSA) was created to organize and conduct these exams. Since 1992, SCSA has been developing, organizing and conducting all entrance tests for higher and secondary specialized educational institutions in the country and has gained 10 years of experience in introducing information technologies into the education process. Since 2001, by Presidential Decree, SCSA has been testing the professional knowledge and skills of governmental employees' prior to employing them for particular positions.
The SCSA assesses the level of knowledge of applicants for university education on the basis of standards developed within the programs and courses for the secondary schools.
The entire process of entrance examinations, that is, designing the optical forms used for the tests; developing the national standards for assessment of the level of knowledge of university applicants; creating and regulating the database of university applicants, personnel, experts, educational institutions; selecting and training the personnel engaged in the process of testing; and informing every applicant about his/her results and every institution about the list of its prospective students; statistical analysis of results and recommendations on further development of the process. All these stages have been designed as an open social-technical system with fully automated technological procedures.
The main component of entrance exams with the application of modern technologies is that these technologies allow assessment not only of the knowledge of applicants within a short-term test through distributing them by specialties, but also the general level of education nationwide and in individual provinces, cities/villages, schools, and subjects. Using IT makes it possible to save time and human resources and eliminate subjectivism during the tests.
Since 1999, SCSA has its own Web site (TQTK.gov.az), which provides information services prior to, as well as after, the exams. Any university applicant can take a virtual exam, and compare his/her personal knowledge with that of other participants on this test.
The introduction of information technologies ensures the following:
- Transparency of the testing process;
- Acceleration of the processing of results;
- Exclusion of subjectivism in assessing knowledge;
- Equal access to education by various groups of the community;
- Reduction of human and financial resources allocated by the government for the process of testing;
- Increase of motivation of the educational process.
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