Candidates for a lawyer's license in Belarus will undergo electronic testing

28 August, Minsk /BELTA correspondent/. In Belarus, from October 2014, the qualification exam for candidates for advocacy will include electronic testing, the Ministry of Justice informed BELTA.

"The relevant software is being developed. By October, it is planned to equip 10 workstations to start with; the question bank will be closed, stored on a separate server, and accessed by password," the ministry clarified. It is expected that the questions will still be in a test format. "The question bank on various branches of law contains 300-400 questions. Tests are compiled manually, with 4 options per exam," the Ministry of Justice reported.

In the case of electronic testing, the test will be new for each trainee each time. The computer will generate a unique set of questions for each person. The operator will only need to set the algorithm before the exam begins: how many questions there should be and from which branches of law.

It is expected that the transition from paper to computer will allow the exam to be conducted faster. The Ministry of Justice believes this acceleration is important, as trainees come to exams from all over the country, and their time is valuable. Currently, tests are checked manually: commission members compare trainees' work with a ready answer key and then double-check each other. This takes 30-40 minutes. A machine can handle this task in seconds. The introduction of electronic testing will eliminate the subjective factor in assessing the quality of trainees' knowledge.

The results of the computer testing will be recorded twice. The results will be stored electronically, and a printout will be attached to the conclusion of the qualification commission, which it prepares based on the exam results for each person. It will be possible to review the test results immediately after the exam to resolve disputed issues on the spot or to appeal the overall exam results in the established manner in the future. "To this end, the retention period for exam results has been extended from 1 month to 1 year," the Ministry of Justice added. -0-

News of Belarus (BELTA)