Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: “I know very well how much effort children put into successfully passing the school-leaving exams, which were reformed this year. It involves sleepless nights, textbooks and study materials every day, tutors, and additional classes at school.
And now the graduates have encountered the very essence of the system – the National Institute for Knowledge Control (RIKZ) failed to even calculate the students' scores correctly. Some received 103 points [out of 100], some ended up with fractional scores, while the majority simply lost 20-25 points for 1-2 mistakes. Despite the widespread errors in the calculations, the Education Minister stated that 'it's all fake.'
The situation sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Yet another absolutely obvious mistake, but officials not only fail to address it but also try to convince people that they are the ones making mistakes. This is the system’s ‘way’ of doing anything: counting votes in elections, 'protecting' Belarusians from the coronavirus, and making up statistics to show high salaries. This happens because no government agency is accountable to the public. What officials care about is reporting to the superior authorities and protecting themselves, rather than supporting citizens and defending their rights.
But parents and children can protect themselves. Their outrage has already forced even Lukashenka to speak out – probably to shift the blame from himself to the local officials. In truly civilized countries, this is how society works: people protest against mistakes and defend their rights, and the system responds to errors and corrects them.
And in all of this, what pleases me the most is seeing the wonderful and amazing generation that is growing up in our country. Children understand the situation perfectly well, and they are ready to defend their rights. They are the grass-roots of our future Belarus, which will respect the law and protect human rights.”
