USETI Alliance Phase II Quarterly Report Y3Q2 (April-June 2015)

Agency for International Development (USAID) under a cooperative agreement. The Alliance is led by American Councils for International Education, collaborating with USAID and 19 other founding partners. The Agreement aims to build a sustainable strengthened UCEQA system capable of independently and transparently developing and implementing secure tests that meet international standards. Throughout the reporting period (April-June 2015), USETI Legacy Alliance Phase II activities focused on supporting UCEQA with test development, psychometrics workshops, implementation of the new law on higher education, development of draft law on education, SET monitoring, and conducting an Alliance partners meeting. The Alliance also provided information and consultation to visitors during the "Information Fair-2015" at the Verkhovna Rada. The External Testing 2015 featured peculiarities, including two tests presented in two levels of complexity and special UCEQA subject working group-defined cut scores for each test. The SET 2015 Timetable included 12 main sessions and 3 extra sessions, with the UCEQA expert subject group defining the cut scores of each SET subject by July 7. The cut scores ranged from 8.1% to 23.3% of participants failing the test. The USETI Alliance participated in the "Information Fair-2015," an exhibition presenting resources from organizations that provide technical, analytical, and consultative assistance to the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. The event featured a special inauguration of the renewed European Information Research Center, and the USETI Alliance provided information and consultation to visitors during the two days of the Fair. Area One of the USETI Alliance's activities focused on strengthening institutional capacity of testing system elements and components. Technical Assistance was delivered to establish UCEQA capacity for ancillary testing mechanisms and applications. USETI Alliance consultants worked with UCEQA, MOES, and Inforesurs on the HEIs admission campaign, which included a system of prioritizing HEIs and major choices by applicants. Area Two of the USETI Alliance's activities focused on establishing legislative and regulatory policy foundations for fair and objective university admissions policy and practices. The National Conference on Education Quality Assurance was held on May 21 in Kyiv at the Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University (KNU). The conference was organized by the Participant Training Program with support of the USETI Alliance, and it featured presentations on educational goals, novel approaches in secondary education, and university transparency as a tool of education quality assurance. The USETI Alliance also provided technical assistance to secure UCEQA capacity for item banking, test development, and test structure/content quality assurance. International consultants worked with UCEQA on statistical analysis of quality of items, test forms quality, and student performance by region, gender, school type, etc. The consultants also consulted on improving the psychometric part of the Testing-2015 report and worked with UCEQA MFL subject specialists and external item writers and reviewers on item analysis and review.