COMPARING THE UNIFIED NATIONAL TEST WITH INTERNATIONAL PRACTICES: INSIGHTS FOR EDUCATIONAL ADVANCEMENT IN KAZAKHSTAN

ABSTRACT

The article's focus is on entrance exams as a way to evaluate applicants’ skills and knowledge before admitting them to institutions. The goal of the article is to evaluate the efficiency of the Unified National Testing. The writers talk about the benefits and drawbacks, as well as opportunities and strategies to make the Unified National Testing better organized. It presents a comparative feature of entrance exam systems in other countries. According to the authors, who cite a number of studies, entrance exams can play a significant role in determining a student's acceptance into a university because they provide an objective evaluation of their academic ability. However, it should be remembered that entrance exams might not accurately represent students' actual skills and ability. The authors come to the conclusion that while Unified National Testing is a valuable tool for student selection, its formats and methods of implementation must be continuously improved to guarantee a more equitable and trustworthy applicant selection process.

Keywords: Unified National Test, Kazakhstan, educational assessment, international standardized testing, entrance exam, skills.

Introduction

One of the most important elements of Kazakhstan's educational system is the Unified National Test (UNT). The UNT was created in 2004 as a component of a larger reform program with the goals of expediting university admissions and creating a uniform framework for evaluating secondary school graduates. It is a high-stakes test that has a big influence on students' futures because it combines the purposes of entrance tests to higher education institutions and final school exams.

However, there has been much discussion on the UNT's contribution to accomplishing its goals. Critics contend that although the test has improved assessment uniformity and openness, it prioritizes rote memorization over creativity, critical thinking, and problem-solving abilities. This limited concentration calls into question how well it prepares students for the demands of both the modern workforce and higher education.

The paper also addresses the necessity of updating the UNT model in light of issues like low test scores and a dearth of tasks that assess higher order thinking abilities. According to contemporary standards based on functional literacy skills and criteria-based assessment, the entrance test used for admission to higher education institutions in Kazakhstan has to be updated to establish a Kazakhstani-style exam.

This study specifically aims:

1. to evaluate how well the UNT measures students’ knowledge and skills.
2. to compare the UNT with standardized tests like the SAT, ACT analyzing international best practices for relevance to Kazakhstan.
3. to critique its limitations, such as over-reliance on rote memorization and lack of assessment for critical thinking and digital literacy skills.

The results of this study will add to current discussions regarding educational reform in Kazakhstan by shedding light on how the UNT can better serve the demands of society and students in a world that is becoming more digitalized and competitive.

Literature review

There are several studies on university entrance examinations, they are used as a form of qualitative research based on the type of examination used by individual states. For this reason, it makes it possible to provide a broad overview of the topic being studied. According to Levin (1998), educational reform is a political plague [2, 131]. This condition implies that the establishment of a national education system can now lead to the state's economic growth and development. Enhancing the quality of education for students at all educational levels is the primary objective of the national initiative "Educated Nation "Quality Education" [3]. Studies examining the national education system of each state, both domestically and internationally, discussing its faults are uncommon. Here are the history and benefits of utilizing various examination kinds to judge the quality of education. identifies that test tasks are centered on the degree of knowledge and highlights the benefits and areas for improvement of the UNT used for admission to Kazakhstan's higher education institutions (Winter et al., 2014) [4, 106]. This view was stated by Jumabaeva Zh. (2016), who points out that the UNT still requires modernization in relation to the shift of secondary education to updated material [5]. According to Yadrova S. (2012), the UNT will focus on the capacity to use theoretical practice in solving mathematical problems [6].

The goal of both the SAT and ACT, which are popular in the US and regarded as best practices abroad, is to evaluate a candidate's topic knowledge and learning capacity. This in turn demonstrates that there is no question about the validity of the American approach of administering standardized tests.

According to research by Patterson and Mattern (2011), academic accomplishment and admissions test scores have a stable long-term association with SAT and ACT results. According to them, improving one's first-year academic performance helps one pass the final exam following further coursework [7]. In the United States, the effectiveness of the program overall and of particular professional preparation "here and now" are evaluated by learning outcomes testing. Therefore, the two test kinds indicated demonstrate that the application enables a thorough evaluation of the candidate's preparedness. Additionally, some research indicates that there is a discrepancy between academic achievement and college success.

Methodology

According to the research, entrance exams are the most efficient means of selecting applicants for admission to universities, and they may be made more successful by fine-tuning their structure and enhancing applicants' readiness. By using this hypothesis, a comparative analysis of entrance exams from other countries demonstrates the necessity for reform in order to increase the efficacy of national exams for admission to higher education institutions. It is well known that it is challenging to forecast the primary success markers when examining academic performance. Even though universities want to admit students with high test scores, it is also evident that these results do not predict a student's future performance. The growth of knowledge and skills must be continuous throughout the training process in order to produce a specialist who can adjust to the labor market after completing all educational levels. This in turn highlights the necessity of updating the admissions exam system for higher education institutions by implementing modifications based on global norms.

Table 1

Comparative Analysis of SAT, ACT, Gaokao, and UNT

Results and Discussion

In international practice, ensuring students' confidence in their chosen profession is the primary objective of entrance exams to higher education institutions. In Europe, the SAT, ACT, and Matura are frequently utilized as common entry exams. For this reason, students' initial preparation—that is, whether they possess the requisite information and skills—as well as their capacity for future study are assessed beforehand.

Admission to universities in the US and Canada is typically not determined by a particular specialty. The following criteria are chosen: SAT, ACT, Advanced Placement (AP) scores, high school GPA, and an application for an interview. The College Board, a nonprofit organization, created and prepared the SAT Reasoning Test (Academic Assessment Test). The American College Testing, or ACT, includes reading, math, science, and English.

Before enrolling in a university, students in Italy complete a final exam. Specialization-based admissions are handled independently by universities. School graduates in Russia are required to complete two exams: one in mathematics and one in Russian. They enroll in three to five courses in each field when they first start college.

According to the 3+1 system, passing the general Chinese state exam, known as the "gaokao," in Chinese requires passing three subjects: mathematics, Chinese, a foreign language (such as English, Japanese, Russian, or French), physics, chemistry, biology, technology and history, geography, political science. Candidates are admitted to an educational institution based on their performance on the Gaokao exam, which is comparable to Russia's unified state exam.

Learning and teaching are negatively impacted by the cramming that the present UNT paradigm promotes. Therefore, it is clear that the abilities evaluated by high-level tasks created in three sections have a favorable effect on the teaching and learning process when developing an updated UNT model. Accordingly, it is suggested that the following talents be tested in the domains chosen in the new UNT model.

1. History of Kazakhstan - the ability to understand, compare, analyze and systematize historical phenomena.

2. Critical thinking - this is the ability to express your opinion and argue by reading and analyzing complex literary and informational texts.

3. Mathematical analysis - this is the ability to understand mathematics and use it in solving problems based on higher thinking skills.

4. Elective subjects (at the candidate's choice) - knowledge and skills in mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry, geography, world history, Kazakh language, Kazakh literature, English language, Russian language, Russian literature and computer science.

The new edition of the UNT, in contrast to the SAT and ACT test samples, enables you to assess your professional readiness (actual and current) through reading instructions, text analysis, critical thinking, essay and English language, History of Kazakhstan. This makes it possible to evaluate the candidate's readiness in-depth using the three tests.

Conclusion

The Unified National Test (UNT) is still a crucial component of Kazakhstan's educational system. This study's main goal was to determine how well the UNT assessed a wide variety of student competencies and how well it matched international educational norms.

The UNT would become more relevant to contemporary education and in line with worldwide trends if it were reformed to incorporate a variety of assessment methods, including as essays, open-ended questions, and digital literacy exercises.

The following suggestions for UNT organization should be made:

- Expanding the number of tasks requiring more sophisticated thinking;

- Examining how easy it is to administer the entrance exam in compliance with global standards;

- Verify if the tasks are in line with the course material. To sum up, taking the entrance exam is a crucial step in the admissions process for universities. However, ongoing adjustment and development are necessary to guarantee its efficacy. This makes graduates more competitive and improves the actual evaluation of educational quality across Kazakhstan.

References:

1. A.Shabdenova, A.Satybaeva (2024). Analysis of the results of the Unified National Testing in the context of graduates of schools in Kazakhstan.https://bulletin-psysoc.kaznu.kz/index.php/1-psy/article/view/1942/1051
2. Levin B. (1998) An Epidemic of Education Policy: (What) Can We Learn from Each Other? // Comparative Education 34, no. 2 (1998): 131–41. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3099797.
3. Kazakstan Respublikasy Ukіmetіnіn 2021 zhylgy 12 kazandagy № 726 kaulysy [Resolution of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan dated October 12, 2021 No. 726] (2021) [Electronic resource]. – https://adilet.zan.kz/kaz/docs/P2100000726 [in Kazakh]
4. Winter L. et al. (2014) The culture and practice of assessment in Kazakhstan: The Unified National Test, past and present. Educational reform and internationalisation: The case of school reform in Kazakhstan: 106-132
5. Jumabayeva J. (2016) The key drivers of the Unified National Test in Kazakhstan: a critical analysis of its impact on school leavers // NUGSE Research in Education Journal. Volume 1. Issue 2. https://nur.nu.edu.kz/handle/123456789/2088.
6. Yadrova S. V. (2012) Problemy matematicheskoj podgotovki shkol'nikov v logike ENT i puti ih resheniya [Problems of mathematical training of schoolchildren in the logic of the UNT and ways to solve them] [in Russ.]
7. Mattern K. D., Patterson B. F. (2011) The Relationship Between SAT® Scores and Retention to the Second Year: Replication with the 2009 SAT Validity Sample //New York: College Board. – T. 2013.