When introducing Gre math questions the Uniform State Exam in the form of testing in Russia, the authors of the education reform usually referred to Western experience. Proponents of the USE stated that even in France tests play a major role in the final certification. In the baccalaureate exam, for example….

After this assertion, all other judgments of the reformers should also be treated with great caution. The fact is that in the French school examination system, the key role is played by “classical” written work, which refers to the intellectual and critical abilities of the graduate: the essay in the humanities classes and problem solving in the science classes. Tests are rarely introduced at the next level of education: for interim certification of first-year students, for example, those taking medicine or physics courses. As the main tool for evaluating knowledge, tests are very rarely used even in such educational systems as the American one, the experience of which is usually referred to when arguing the need for the USE in Russia. Whereas in France it is mainly the examination screening of school leavers that works, in the United States it is the attestation selection of applicants, which is accompanied by a dossier, a set of documents, which the candidate provides to the university commission. Again, one of the fundamental tools for assessing an applicant’s intellectual abilities is the essay. This is one or two written papers in which the applicant is able to coherently present his thoughts either about a subject or problem, or about why he chooses this specialty, this university, etc.

The Bologna system involves the introduction of a two-tiered system of higher education. In France now, as far as we know, there is a three-tier system. Judging by the experience of this country, how seriously does the level of diploma affect a person’s position on the labor market?

Decisively. Strictly speaking, the Bologna system implies formalization of the three levels of education in all countries. Just somewhere, like in Russia, post-graduate studies are symptomatically excluded from the system. In France, the Bologna System is firmly associated with the acronym “LMD”: licence, the equivalent of our bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, and doctorat, the equivalent of postgraduate study. Since the diploma is supposed to certify the level of qualification obtained at the university, the level of the graduate’s starting point in the labor market corresponds to the particular level of the diploma. It must be noted that a trend of the last 20 years in France is the codification of skills in all professional fields. For example, 20 years ago a certificate or diploma was not necessary to become a carpenter. Now it is necessary: a person must complete the analogue of our vocational school or take a course, otherwise he can be deprived of his license. And this total codification of all professional skills is one of the reasons why the boundaries dra levels between different types of educational institutions are losing their permeability. Moreover, it is assumed that with the division of education into three independent levels and stricter requirements for the certification of specialties, a number of universities will only be able to issue diplomas of the first level.

By the way, in Russia there are also institutions, originally created according to this new system, which until recently issued only bachelor diplomas.