Registration for applicants to participate in the centralized testing begins today.

4 May, Minsk /Yulia Vanina - BELTA/. Registration of applicants for participation in centralised testing (CT) begins today. Registration will be conducted from 4 May to 1 June inclusive. This was reported to BELTA correspondent by Nikolai Feskov, Director of the Republican Institute for Knowledge Control of the Ministry of Education. Registration points will be open from 9:00 to 19:00 on weekdays and until 18:00 on Saturdays. When registering, an applicant will need to fill out an application form, provide a document confirming payment for the acceptance and processing of documents for participation in centralised testing (Br10 thousand for one academic subject), and present a passport, or a residence permit in Belarus, or a refugee certificate, or a certificate issued in case of loss (theft) of an identity document. This year, an automated system for CT registration has been introduced in all 73 registration points in Belarus. The first stage of implementing the information system "Republican Database of Centralised Testing Participants" covered testing points in Minsk and regional centres in 2010. Previously, such registration was conducted experimentally during the 2009 admission campaign at Yanka Kupala Grodno State University and Belarusian State University of Informatics and Radioelectronics. The implementation of the automated information system will streamline the organisation of registration and allow it to be conducted on a "one-stop-shop" principle, Nikolai Feskov is confident. The use of the new system will fully automate the work of registration points, save labour and a significant amount of financial resources, and ensure applicant registration within a single window. Overall, the system reduces the time for registering one applicant through the automation of all document processing stages and elevates the registration process to a new level of reliability and efficiency. A reserve day for those who could not attend the centralised testing on schedule for objective reasons is 4 July. The registration period for applicants to participate in the CT for academic subjects on the reserve day is from 27 to 30 June.

The first test (in the Belarusian language) will be held on June 14. On June 15, applicants will take Russian language, on June 17 – History of Belarus, on June 19 – Mathematics, on June 21 – Social Studies, on June 22 – Chemistry, on June 23 – World History of Recent Times, on June 25 – Physics, on June 26 – Biology, on June 28 – Foreign Languages, on June 29 – Geography. All tests will start at 11:00. Certificates, as in the past year, will be issued to everyone who scores 1 point or more. The issuance of certificates to all applicants increases their chances of admission to higher education institutions (HEIs) and secondary vocational education institutions (SVEIs) of both state-funded and private forms of ownership. Not all HEIs in Belarus have been designated as registration points for the Centralized Testing (CT), but only a few dozen – where the premises allow. Therefore, when filling out the documents, it is necessary to pay attention specifically to the educational institution where the testing itself will take place according to the admission ticket issued to the applicant. When applying to an SVEI, an applicant can register for two test subjects; for an HEI – for no more than three academic subjects: Belarusian or Russian language (applicant's choice) and two subjects in accordance with the profile (specialisation) of the chosen field. Only applicants with uncovered heads, i.e., without headwear, will be admitted to the Centralized Testing this year. Specialists responsible for conducting the CT have repeatedly noted cases where transmitting devices, cheat sheets, and other examination "ammunition" were hidden under caps, scarves, and headscarves. As a calculator, only a device that cannot receive, store, or transmit information is allowed – mobile phones, tablets, and e-readers are best left at home. For Physics and Chemistry tests, a basic calculator can be used, which performs four arithmetic operations, has one memory register, and among additional functions – calculates percentages and square roots. The time of the CT, the number of tasks for each subject, and the answer processing technologies remain unchanged. As before, results will be provided within 10-12 days after the test. -0-

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