The CSE hotline was much busier this year than last. There were lots of calls with good questions, and whereas last year most of them were about procedures, this year the experts hardly had time to answer all the concrete questions about school subjects, though there were masses of procedural questions too. I was really pleased to see the kids taking the hotline seriously and placing so much trust in it. There were a few cases where the line had to act as a kind of “emergency service”, even after it had officially closed down.
I’ll give you two examples. The first was a request from School NO.1035 (Eastern Administrative Area, Metrogorodok district). What happened was that some school-leavers had been given CSE certificates made out in blue ink (instead of black) and the universities were refusing to accept them. In the enrollment offices the kids were being told that their CSE certificates were invalid – and this was just one week before the enrollment deadline! By that time the school’s head teachers were on holiday, and the Moscow Education Department said it would take over a month to replace the certificates. The people on the Education Inspectorate hotline didn’t know what to suggest, either… So then the kids’ parents started phoning the CSE hotline.
A pretty unusual situation, to say the least! So I decided to get in contact directly with the head of the Education Inspectorate (Rosobrnadzor), Lyubov Nikolayevna Glebova. She immediately called her assistant and gave her instructions, and things were promptly sorted out: the kids were issued with new certificates a few days later.
The second case where we had to provide emergency assistance was in Volgograd. We were contacted by the father of a pupil who had sat a supplementary social studies exam in the regional education committee. The day on which she was to receive her CSE certificate practically coincided with the student enrollment deadline for the universities. But she couldn’t submit her application without the certificate, as this would automatically exclude her from the selection procedure…
This stalemate situation (as her father put it) was also resolved after we, together with the Education Inspectorate, got involved, and in the end the technical hitches did not prevent her from applying to the universities and institutes of her choice.
I could mention other examples, too, but the main thing is that the kids and their parents didn’t panic when they found themselves in difficulty, and together with the Education Inspectorate we were able to help.
So the CSE hotline not only provided the kids with advice on subjects and exam procedures, but also acted as a kind of emergency response centre to solve
