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4 Most Unforgettable Stories from Exams 2023

What are the very first words that come up when mentioning exams? stress, hard work, dedication maybe?

What about excitement, joy, changing lives, making an impact?

We have collected four most memorable moments from exams 2023 as reminders that “those little things in life” matter the most.

#1 It is never to late to follow your dreams

I am 45 years old. A mother of 7 children and a grandmother of 2 grandchildren. This year I am taking the unified national exams. My decision at this age might seem strange for many people…
In 1995, I enrolled in the Faculty of Journalism. Unfortunately, due to family circumstances, I could not continue my studies from the second year. Of course, I was always heartbroken over this.
My husband passed away 3 years ago. After I was left alone, I realized I had to test out my potential as a person, as a woman and use my abilities live life to the fullest… Lacking higher education has always been one of my major regrets, so I went for it.
Despite many obstacles, I still decided to break the stereotypes and show everyone (including myself) that if you set a goal age does not matter at all.
Now I work in a kindergarten. I am a teacher’s assistant. I plan to continue my studies in the field of education. I prepared independently for the Georgian language and literature exam.
I hope everything will work out.
Megi Tateshvili, university entrant.

#2 Food is always a good idea

What happens when a nursing mother is an examinee?

Babies get to have breakfast, lunch and dinner at exam centers.

Exam center coordinators bring kiddos to their mamas and after meal time mothers continue working on the test again.

#3 The love of caring for people makes everything easier

“I wrote well, grandma!” – I am so happy every time the students tell me this when they come out of the exam and share a warm goodbye. I recently turned 70 years old – in addition to my grandchildren, you can say that I am also a grandmother of these applicants. I support each of them with all my heart.

I have been working as a cleaning lady for 12 years in the examination center in the 175th public school. This place is more than a job for me – I have a second home and a second family here. It seems that the joy of life increases with the interaction with the employees of the center.

We start cleaning the examination center from 6 o’clock in the morning. Physical work is not easy for anyone, but the love of caring for people makes everything easier for us
Eter Mukhigulashvili.

#4 If you want the rainbow you have to deal with the rain

This year, for the first time an exam center was opened in Ambrolauri, in the northwestern part of Georgia, the mountainous Racha-Lechkhumi and Kvemo Svaneti region.

Weather in the mountains changed pretty rapidly but the exam center staff made sure to assist each and every applicant to keep them from rain and bring smiles to brighten up their day.

The 2023 exams will conclude on the 26th of July. In parallel with the Unified National Exams in 2023, the National Assessment and Examinations Center is also conducting a Common Master’s Degree Exam and a Student Grant Competition. The center will also conduct the Subject/Professional Skills/Senior Special Teacher Examinations. In total, more than 75,000 applicants are registered for the 2023 exams.

Student Grant Competition 2023

Grant competition 2023 started on Wednesday, the 12th. More than 3,000 students who endeavor to obtain or improve educational funding joined the examination process. The Grant Competition has been held since 2007 and is a unique opportunity for students to get or increase merit based state grants.

All undergraduate students of accredited higher educational institutions, who have either not received a grant at all, or have only partial funding, have the right to participate in the competition. If the student is unable to improve the funding, he/she retains the previously obtained grant and remains entitled to re-register for the student grant competition each subsequent year (the grant does not finance additional semesters).

The National Assessment and Examinations Center has developed a test format specifically for this exam, and each year, test items are tailored for students to assess their general academic skills. Conducting the grant competition in the form of a centralized exam creates equal conditions for students of different universities and increases the motivation to study harder.

A foreign language exam for entrants was also held on the 12th of July. The next exam will be in biology on July 14.

Exams 2023 Have Started

On Monday, July the 3rd, centralized exam rollercoaster took off in Georgia. The first exam from the list of the Unified National Examinations was held in two sessions. The registration for the first session began simultaneously at 24 exam centers throughout the country at 08:00 sharp. The exam started at 09:00. The second session started at 15:00 and the registration was open from 14:00.

The Director of the NAEC Sophia Gorgodze as well as the Minister of Education and Science of Georgia Giorgi Amilakhvari and the Deputy Minister Gela Geladze visited the exam centers to observe the process on the spot.

The first exam sessions have passed peacefully, however many more intense days are ahead for the National Assessment and Examinations Center as the record number of registered applicants (more than 45000) will be testing out their skills and knowledge within the upcoming weeks.

This year the exam centers operate in Tbilisi, Batumi, Zugdidi, Kutaisi, Poti, Akhaltsikhe, Gori, Ozurgeti, Rustavi, Telavi and Khulo. For the first time, the examination center was opened in Ambrolauri.

All centers are equipped with a cooling system and all the necessary infrastructure. Ambulances, rescue service and patrol police are mobilized at the examination centers. Additional public transport with a standard rate has been allocated to get to the exam centers.

Exams Schedule 2023

On Thursday, the 15th Dr. Sophia Gorgodze, the director of the National Assessment and Examinations Center held a briefing regarding the 2023 exam schedule.

Unified National Exams will start on July 3 with the Georgian language and conclude on July 26.

Detailed information about times and dates as well as the address of an exam center will be indicated on the exam card. The examinees will be able to print the cards from their accounts after June 20.

More than 75,000 applicants registered for Exams 2023.

A record number of examinees registered for the Unified National Exams – more than 45,000 entrants;
Student Grant Competition – more than 3,000;
Common Master’s Exam – more than 10,000;
Teacher’s Subject Competency Exam – more than 16,000;
Special Teacher Exam – about 2,500.

24 examination centers will be operating during this year’s exams throughout Georgia. Exam centers will be available in Tbilisi, Batumi, Zugdidi, Kutaisi, Poti, Akhaltsikhe, Gori, Ozurgeti, Rustavi, Telavi and Khulo. This year, for the first time, the examination center will be opened in Ambrolauri.

Exam schedule in Georgian can be found here.

The National Assessment and Examinations Center wishes success to all the applicants!

TIMSS 2023

On Friday, the 9^th Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2023 was completed in Georgia. 10 000 fourth and eighth grade students from 166 public and private schools took part in the research.

Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study is conducted in more than 70 countries worldwide. It is organized by International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). This year TIMSS marked the eighth cycle of the assessment since the inauguration of the study in 1995. Providing over 20 years of trend data, TIMSS has been a valuable tool for monitoring international trends in mathematics and science achievement at the fourth and eighth grades. Georgia has been participating in TIMSS from 2007 and the NAEC has been conducting the study ever since.

Like the previous TIMSS assessments, TIMSS 2023 will collect detailed information about curriculum and curriculum implementation, instructional practices, and school resources.

Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study 2023 was conducted in a fully electronic format. Like in other developed countries, for the first time in Georgia, students were tested using the online administration method. Together with the students, their parents, teachers and school principals participated in the research.

TIMSS achievement data are accompanied by a rich array of contextual questionnaire data about how countries around the world deliver and improve learning in mathematics and science. Trend results across study cycles permit countries to monitor the effectiveness of their educational systems in a global context.

In order to ensure highly efficient administration of the survey, the National Assessment and Examinations Center conducted nationwide trainings for survey proctors and administrators. 242 representatives of 166 schools participated in the trainings.

It is important that in the current cycle the participation rate of students, teachers, principals and parents were particularly high in Georgia. The research was conducted across the country in full compliance with international recommendations and standards. The research process was monitored and evaluated by international quality control monitors.

The results of the study will be available in 2024.

PIRLS 2021 International Results in Reading

On Tuesday, the 16^th the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) published the results of PIRLS 2021 (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study).

In 2021, the number of countries participating in the study increased to 57. A total of 346,992 students worldwide took part in the international study. 5,637 students from 190 schools participated in PIRLS 2021 from Georgia.

The PIRLS 2021 study was conducted under different circumstances compared to previous cycles due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. A large number of students were switched to distance learning mode, therefore, the number of students in the classrooms of the schools selected for testing was less than the acceptable percentage of the reliability of the study. This is why, according to the decision of the IEA, in 14 countries (United States of America, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Ireland, Qatar, Latvia, Lithuania, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Northern Ireland, Croatia, Georgia), students wrote the test in the fall instead of the spring of 2021, and in 6 countries the test was conducted one year later. Therefore, a new stream of fourth-graders took part in the test in these countries.

Considering the mentioned circumstances, the IEA highly recommended not to compare the results of the countries that wrote the test in the fall with the results of the countries that completed the test in the spring.

During the testing period, the average age of students in Georgia was 5 months higher than the average age of students in most countries. A similar situation existed in 13 other countries, where, due to the age difference, it was difficult to compare with the previous cycles. PIRLS data indicated a substantial deterioration in achievement in the vast majority of participating countries.

It should be noted that Georgia is not in the list of countries where the average literacy score has decreased.

Along with the evaluation of the student’s achievements in literacy, the task of the research is to study the impact of school, teacher and family factors on the student’s literacy achievements and the formation of literacy skills. The impact of these factors on student achievement, the main findings and results of the research will be presented later in the form of a national research report.

At this stage, some general findings can be introduced:

Out of the 57 countries included in the study, only in 6 countries are boys able to have similar achievements in literacy as girls. In the remaining 51 countries, including Georgia, girls have better literacy achievements than boys. In none of the countries included in the study do boys have an advantage over girls. In Georgia, the difference between the achievements of students by gender is statistically significant and is maintained throughout the entire research cycle;
According to recent studies, a comparative analysis of urban and rural schools in Georgia shows the advantage of urban schools in the literacy achievement of students, although the 2021 study shows a reduction in the gap between rural and urban schools due to the improvement of rural school achievement. Improvements in rural school student outcomes were also seen in the 2019 Math and Science Achievement Scores (TIMSS 2019);
In the 2021 study, a statistically significant difference between the achievement of students in private and public schools remained. Private school students do better on literacy tasks.

PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) is an international literacy study of fourth-grade students conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) since 2001.

Georgia participated in the last four cycles (2006, 2011, 2016 and 2021). The research group of the National Assessment and Examinations Center is leading the PIRLS in Georgia. The research aims to evaluate the reading skills of 9-10-year-old (fourth-grade) students and determine the impact of such contextual factors as the learning environment, parental involvement, school management, teacher qualifications, information and communication technologies, etc., on the student’s learning process.

PIRLS focuses on the reading goals and comprehension processes of fiction and informational texts. Half of the PIRLS assessment focuses on acquiring literary expertise, and the other half focuses on acquiring and using information.

More on PIRLS 2021 can be explored in English at the link.

“Assessment for Development” Pilot Testing

On Friday, the 5th intensive pilot testing was successfully completed within the framework of the project “Assessment for Development”. Four days of testing started on the 2nd of May. Each day, up to 14,000 students from 770 public schools were involved in each session.

4th and 6th graders were tested in mathematics, as well as in Georgian language and literature. Pilot testing aimed to test the functionality and the test format of the e-assessment platform.

Dr. Sophia Gorgodze, director of the National Assessment and Examinations Center visited the public school No 122 and observed the testing process on the spot. No errors were detected during the testing, the system proved to be fully functioning smoothly with 14 000 simultaneous entries.

The National Assessment and Examinations Center started working on the project “Assessment for Development” back in 2019. Since then, a number of pilots have been conducted in order to refine the electronic platform and the testing format, as well as adapt it to the needs of the school as much as possible.

The project “Assessment for Development” aims to assess the achievements of fourth and sixth graders in Georgian and mathematics. The testing is conducted entirely by electronic software: students complete the tasks electronically, and the results are also available electronically.

In the future, the project will give the school the opportunity to observe the trends in teaching and learning both at the individual class level and at the school level in general. In addition, the results will help students and parents gain information about students’ strengths and weaknesses. It should be noted that the obtained points are not reflected in the student’s annual assessment.

CERTUS – English Language Proficiency Testing

On Wednesday, the 19th the representatives of the public and private universities of Georgia got together at NAEC to discuss the partnership within the framework of the project “CERTUS”.

The National Assessment and Examinations Center’s assessment platform “CERTUS” is a great way to test English language proficiency and obtain a certificate in a flash.

During the presentation the author of the project, the Head of Foreign Languages Subject Group Rusudan Tkemaladze spoke about the contents of the test. According to Ms. Tkemaladze the test evaluates examinee’s level of grammatical structures, vocabulary, as well as reading, listening, speaking and writing skills.

The level of language proficiency is determined in accordance with the levels set by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages – C1 (high) , B2 (above average), B1 (medium), A2 (below average), A1 (elementary).

The test consists of four parts:

1. Reading and use of English;

2. Listening;

3. Speaking;

4. Writing.

The examinee can take the test fully or partially. The parts of the test can be passed in any sequence.

“CERTUS” is a computer based test. Therefore, the results of reading comprehension and use of English will be revealed upon completion. However, the results of the speaking and listening parts will be known within 10 working days.

The CERTUS language proficiency certificate is recognized by the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports of Georgia, as well as accredited private and public higher education institutions.

The registration for the very first “CERTUS” exam is now open.

Unified National Examinations 2023 Statistics of Optional Subjects

More than 45,000 entrants registered for the Unified National Exams 2023.

About 22,200 entrants chose history;
Mathematics – more than 15,700 applicants;
Biology – more than 3,600 applicants;
Chemistry – more than 2,600 applicants;
Geography – more than 2,200 applicants;
Physics – up to 700 applicants;
Literature – up to 1,300 entrants;
Civic education – more than 2,000 entrants;
More than 300 entrants chose fine and applied arts.

Registration for the 2023 exams concluded on April 3, however applicants had the opportunity to make changes to the list of subjects to be taken or to change the language of the exam until April 13 at 18:00.

The participants in the unified national exams will be able to make changes in the list of educational programs until the day after the publication of the appeal results. The specific number will be published in August.

National School Olympiad Results

National School Olympiad results are already available. 120 brightest minds from around 60 000 pupils have won the major national educational contest in twelve different subjects.

The National Assessment and Examinations Center has been organizing and administering National School Olympiads since 2009. The winners of the national rounds are typically awarded with diplomas and gifts. These students also compile teams for international Olympiads.

National School Olympiads are an excellent platform to hone the learning process of students. Olympiads improve the performance of students in a big way. These exams let in an optimistic approach in students. By participating in Olympiads, the students develop a natural aspiration to learn and gain knowledge.

The questions that come in National School Olympiads are mostly based on the syllabus of the school. The pattern of questions in this exam is somewhat different from that of the school. The students need to have a better and quicker ability to answer such questions.

More and more students are willing to participate in National School Olympiad. One of the reasons for these dynamics is the hybrid assessment model offered by NAEC. The first round of the Olympiad is held online giving all of the interested students an opportunity to try, while the second and the third rounds are administered in person.