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Education official says children in Western Ukraine show poor knowledge of Ukrainian

The western regions have the highest percentage of unsatisfactory marks in the Ukrainian language, literature and history

KIEV, August 16 /TASS/. Schoolchildren in Western Ukraine know their native language worse than in other parts of the country, Vadim Karandiy, director of Ukrainian Center of Assessment of the Quality of Education, told a news conference on Tuesday.

"Ukraine’s Trans-Carpathian, Chernovtsy and Rovno regions have the highest percentage of unsatisfactory marks in the Ukrainian language, literature and history," Karandiy said.

He added that from 14.9% to 29.2% of the schoolchildren in those regions had failed to pass the External Knowledge Assessment (VNO) tests in the above-mentioned subjects.

Karandiy noted that the best VNO results were in Kiev where almost 40% of the pupils got from 160 to 200 points. It may be because Kiev is the capital, which attracts the intellectual resource. Chemistry was the only school discipline in which Kiev lost its leadership to the Lvov region," Karandiy explained.

This year, all school-leavers in Ukraine take mandatory tests in two subjects: the Ukrainian language and literature; the history of Ukraine or math at their own choice.

The External Independent Assessment is the analogue of Russia’s Unified State Exam: a series of trials for school-leavers who intend to continue their education at institutions of high learning. It takes place under the supervision of the Ukrainian Center of Assessment of the Quality of Education.