On October 16, Minsk /BelTA correspondent/. The Ministry of Education has submitted proposals for amending the admission rules for higher and secondary vocational education institutions in Belarus to the relevant departments for consideration. This was reported to BelTA by the press center of the Ministry of Education. In particular, it is proposed to abolish the separate competition for admission among graduates of rural and urban educational institutions. "Given the leveling of the training standards of rural and urban schoolchildren, it is considered justified to hold a general competition," the press center said. Over several years, there has been a significant convergence of passing scores for applicants - graduates of rural and urban educational institutions. In the last two years, enrollment has been conducted on a general competition basis for every second specialty. In 2012, at Belarusian State University, for example, the proportion of specialties for which rural school graduates achieved higher scores than urban graduates was 67% (in 2011 - 51%). In regional universities, this figure was even higher. However, in a number of cases, urban applicants with a score advantage of 100 or more points lost the competition. For instance, at Belarusian State University, the passing score for the specialty "microbiology" for urban applicants was 243, and for rural applicants - 134; for the specialty "international law" - 374 and 287 points, respectively. Currently, a separate competition is held on the condition that the passing score for rural applicants is lower than the passing scores for urban applicants, even if only one application is submitted by a rural applicant, which sometimes distorts the principle of fairness in enrollment.-0-

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