Tasks Changed During the Test — Applicants Continue to Complain About ORT

Students and parents in Kyrgyzstan continue to voice strong dissatisfaction with the administration of the General Republican Test (ORT), a crucial examination for university admissions. Recent reports highlight a particularly distressing incident on May 19 in Tokmok, where students taking the ORT allegedly had their test booklets abruptly confiscated mid-exam.

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They brought new booklets with questions that they had essentially never studied in schools or in additional courses. This is psychological pressure on the children. They are in panic, hysterics, tears. The poor things simply lost an hour of time.

The reason cited for this disruption was a supposed leak of chemistry answers, leading administrators to collect all test materials. Students were then reportedly given new booklets containing material they had not studied, plunging them into panic and distress. This abrupt change, according to social media posts, resulted in a significant loss of valuable testing time and immense psychological pressure on the young examinees.

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In accordance with the procedures for conducting the ORT, separate boxes with test materials are provided for each session. On May 19, 2026, several testing sessions were held at the center. During the rotation of participant flows, administrators did not open the box with test materials intended for the respective session in a timely manner, as a result of which notebooks of another session were mistakenly issued.

The Center for Education Assessment and Methods (CEAM) has responded to these allegations, attributing the incident to an administrative oversight. They stated that the wrong set of test materials was mistakenly distributed to students before the testing instructions were fully read. CEAM insists that the test booklets were collected and replaced with the correct ones before any actual testing began, and that answer sheets were also replaced to ensure accuracy. While CEAM apologizes for the situation and assures that no test content was leaked or compromised, the students' experience underscores a need for greater diligence and transparency in the ORT administration process, particularly as its results become mandatory for college admissions as well as university entry from 2026.

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Test booklets were collected and replaced with materials corresponding to this session without delay. Since some of the applicants had managed to indicate the number of the test booklet on the answer sheets, in order to ensure the correctness of the procedure and to avoid possible errors, the answer sheets were also replaced.