Eagle, I don't want to form an alliance anymore.

The Minister of Higher and Secondary Vocational Education showed little change in expression—he oversaw the most powerful sector, and with the merger, he would likely be in charge. The Minister of Education remained calm. The Chairman of the National Committee for Vocational and Technical Education, however, appeared somewhat worried.

Slava observed the reactions of the three people.

"I know everyone has their own ideas. We can discuss the specific details of the merger later, but I'm setting this direction today to tell you that we can't just focus on universities when we discuss enrollment reform. Universities, vocational schools, and technical schools are a whole, a complete chain from children to talents. The opinions of the three of you here today must be taken seriously."

This was especially addressed to the chairman of the Vocational and Technical Education Committee.

After laying the groundwork, Slava got straight to the point: "Everyone knows better than I what the problems are with the current admissions system."

I won't go into detail about corruption, regional inequality, the one-school-one-exam system that forces students to gamble, and the inability to compare exam questions across different schools. What I want to discuss today is how to change these issues.

Someone suggested to me that we follow China's example and implement a nationwide standardized test, but I don't agree with that.

Slava then briefly explained his reasons.

"My initial idea is not to hold a unified exam for all subjects, but to hold joint exams for major subject categories."

He laid out this line of thought.

The universities across the Soviet Union were divided into broad academic disciplines, such as physics and mathematics, chemistry and biology, engineering and technology, agriculture, medicine, economics, humanities, foreign languages, etc.

Each major category is led by a few of the top universities in the field, who organize joint question setting and grading across institutions.

Candidates can apply for multiple major categories within a year, and after the exams, they can also choose several schools within the same major category to fill out their applications.

"With this change, personal relationships in the oral exam process have been diluted—because the grading is done anonymously across schools, no longer solely determined by one school. There are now comparable scores across different schools, while professionalism is preserved—MFTI and the College of Agriculture will not be forced to use the same exam paper; physics and mathematics will have their own papers, and agriculture will have its own papers. The pressure on candidates to gamble has also been greatly reduced—because they can apply to several schools without having to put all their eggs in one basket."

The Minister of Higher and Secondary Vocational Education was the first to speak out.

"Comrade General Secretary, I agree with this direction! Preserving specialization is what I value most. What we fear most is that in the name of fairness, standards will be leveled out, ruining our approach to cultivating top talent. General Secretary's method of categorizing by major groups unifies standards without sacrificing specialization. Excellent!"

However, he immediately raised a concern: "I suggest that the oral examination process for top universities be retained."

For schools like Moscow State University, Leningrad Polytechnic University, and MFTI, written test scores alone are not enough. We need to judge whether a student has the potential for scientific research and how well they think under pressure. These things cannot be tested on paper; we need to rely on oral examinations.

"Completely eliminating oral exams will prevent us from identifying truly promising candidates."

"Well, the oral exam can be retained, but you have to let me plug the loopholes for corruption. Here's how it works—we'll mandate recording and archiving of the entire process, with the education supervision department reserving the right to conduct random checks and review."

While this doesn't address the root cause, it significantly increases the cost of using connections.

The minister thought for a moment and nodded: "I can accept this. Having some oversight is better than having nothing at all."

At this point, the Minister of Education spoke up. He was in charge of ordinary primary and secondary schools, so his perspective was different.

"Comrade General Secretary, the joint examination by major categories addresses the issue at the university level. But what I'm worried about is the nationalistic sentiment in the constituent republics below."

As you just mentioned, language is the most critical factor. Even if we don't use a single national exam, as long as this major joint entrance exam is conducted in Russian, students from Uzbekistan and Georgia will still be at a disadvantage. How can we solve this?”

Slava was prepared: "We allow the constituent republics to organize joint examinations within their own republics using their own national languages."

All three people in the conference room were looking at him.

"Moscow does not force a unified Russian language exam. Ukraine has its own unified exam for Ukrainian, Georgia has its own unified exam for Georgian, and Uzbekistan has its own unified exam for Uzbek—the content of each exam is determined by the education department of the respective republic and the National Education Committee of the Union through consultation on the syllabus. Higher education institutions within the constituent republics give priority to using the results of the unified exam of the respective republic for admissions."

"What if an Uzbek child wants to apply to a school in another republic?" the Minister of Education asked. "For example, he wants to go to Moscow University."

“Then he’ll have to take an extra Russian language proficiency test,” Slava said. “If you want to go to a school where Russian is taught, you have to prove that your Russian is good enough. But if you just want to study in your own republic, then you can take the test in your native language and get the points based on your own ability. Nobody can stop you, and nobody can call you a second-class citizen.”

He paused.

“I think this change will ease local ethnic tensions a lot. What the republics fear most right now is that Moscow wants to control everything, unify everything, and push their languages ​​and cultures to the side!”

By having the constituent republics organize joint examinations in their own languages, we are essentially telling them that Moscow respects local languages ​​and cultures, which is a manifestation of the Union's national policy in education.

Everyone expressed their support.

"Finally, there are students enrolled under targeted contracts."

He looked at the chairman of the Vocational and Technical Education Committee, who had been relatively silent—this area was closest to his territory.

"These industry-academia collaborations are in dire need of technical talent. I would like to create a separate pathway for these employers."

Consortiums of employers can sign targeted contracts with universities to train the personnel they need. The entrance exam standards for these contract students are jointly set by the consortium and the university—they can be lower than the national unified entrance exam cutoff score. In exchange, students must sign longer service contracts, such as five to seven years, and must work for the consortium for that duration after graduation.

"The main purpose of this is to create a stable talent channel for the consortium, so that it doesn't have to compete with others for talent in the unified examination pool. The consortium can cultivate the people it needs, which is a good thing for the consortium. Moreover, this policy can also provide a new path for upward mobility for students from ethnic minorities in remote areas."

He looked at the chairman of the Vocational and Technical Education Committee and said:

“A child from a remote area may not be able to get into a top school like Moscow State University because of his score. But if a consortium is willing to take him and provide him with targeted training, he can get into a good school with a score below the highest admission line and have a stable job after graduation.”

Many of these are children your vocational school system would have already accepted. Now they have another path to advancement; give them a second chance.

The committee chairman breathed a sigh of relief: "Comrade General Secretary, I fully support this targeted contract student program. It provides a real way for those students who have a weak foundation but are willing to work hard to make a living."

It also gave intellectuals a way out through back channels, which can be considered Slava's compromise.

The direction was set at this point in the meeting.

The joint entrance examination by major subject categories replaced the independent examinations set by each school, which unified the standards while maintaining professionalism.

The constituent republics organized local joint examinations in their own national languages;

Top universities retain oral exams, but require mandatory recording and archiving, with random checks.

The special enrollment program for contract-based students provides a separate pathway for talent within industry-academia collaboration, as well as a new path for advancement for children from remote areas and ethnic minorities.

After the meeting's content was discussed and finalized at the Central Committee plenary session, the leader was very satisfied with it.

"Brother Lao, you finally listened to what I said."

Slava glanced at her: "Hey, I'm listening to the problem you're talking about, not the pharmacy you're suggesting. You can't treat this disease by just copying other people's methods."

Director Nian smiled and said nothing more.

She knew perfectly well that Slava's system was far more complex than simply copying a national standardized test. It wasn't as straightforward or decisive, but it was adapted to the specific conditions of the Soviet Union, a vast, multi-ethnic, and highly specialized country.

This is the real Slava – he wants something that can be truly implemented without causing problems.

Whether this system is effective or not remains to be seen and will be tested over time.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

The storm of Moscow's education reforms has finally swept across the entire union.

Rustam's home is in a cotton-producing region of Uzbekistan.

Looking out from his yard, one sees an endless expanse of cotton fields. At harvest time, the white cotton bolls blanket the horizon, like a snowfall that never melts.

He grew up in this cotton field, where his father and grandfather spent their entire lives tending to the cotton.

Rustam was different from other children from a young age.

He liked to tinker with things and figure out how machines worked. When the tractor in the field broke down and the adults were at a loss, he, a teenager, would squat by and watch for a while and often be able to point out the problem.

He was so good at math that it surprised his teachers at school—his intuition for numbers and logic was innate. His teachers told his father that this child was destined to be an engineer and that he shouldn't be left to spend his whole life in the cotton fields, but should be sent to university.

Rustam himself wanted to as well.

He wanted to go to Moscow, to study the most advanced things at Moscow State University. Although for an Uzbek boy who grew up in cotton fields, Moscow State University was a place as far away as another planet, he still wanted to go.

In 1987, he took the entrance exam for Moscow State University for the first time and, unsurprisingly, failed.

He is certainly a genius, but genius is merely the threshold to enter the examination room of Moscow University, where there is no shortage of geniuses.

His failure to pass the exam was not solely due to a lack of ability.

He didn't understand the reason until much later. The best programs at Moscow State University had very few spots available, and a significant portion of those spots had already been reserved by phone calls and referrals.

A high-ranking official in Moscow, or an old friend of an academician, made a phone call and the child's name was on the admission list. The spots these children took were reserved for rural children like Rustam, who had no connections or background.

Before he even stepped into the exam room, the number of positions he could compete for was actually less than what was publicly announced.

Furthermore, Moscow State University has a severe problem with discrimination against non-native Russian speakers. One of the exams at Moscow State University is a Russian essay, and Krusty Krastam learned Russian in a rural school in Uzbekistan.

The quality of Russian language teaching there couldn't compare to that in schools in Moscow and Leningrad. He could read, write, and have everyday conversations, but when it came to writing a decent, well-written essay in Russian to compete with city kids who grew up immersed in a Russian-speaking environment, he was at a natural disadvantage.

More importantly, he was naive and inexperienced. He was called a genius in the countryside only because the area was small, while Moscow University recruits geniuses from all over the tens of millions of square kilometers of land.

The difficulty of the entrance exam set by Moscow State University is based on the teaching level of the best secondary schools in Moscow, while Rustam's education in the Uzbek countryside did not reach that depth at all.

Some of the questions were ones he had never even seen before. He sat in the exam room looking at those questions as if he were looking at a wall that he could not climb over.

The summer after he failed his exams, he returned to the cotton fields.

He didn't cry or complain to anyone; he just became increasingly silent.

He picked up cotton harvesting again, working in the fields during the day and reading by lamplight at night—he was unwilling to accept this, he felt he was no worse than those city kids, he was just... he was just born in the wrong place and spoke the wrong language.

His father looked at him and sighed. The father wanted to say, "Just stay home and grow cotton. There's nothing wrong with growing cotton," but looking at his son's back as he read by lamplight at night, he couldn't bring himself to say it.

Rustam decided to go to war.

By 1988, when Rustam went to take the exam again, everything had changed.

The exam rules have changed. Instead of each school setting its own questions and admitting students independently, a unified joint exam is now organized by major subject categories.

He wants to study computer science and engineering, which falls under the "engineering and technology" category. This category is led by the top schools in the field, who jointly set the exam questions and grade them anonymously.

What surprised him even more was that he could take the entire exam in Uzbek. Uzbekistan organized its own joint exam, the content of which was agreed upon by the republic's education department and Moscow.

Rustam can finally prove his abilities in his own mother tongue.

He did very well on the test. Rustam, who answered the questions in his native language, was like someone who had finally been freed from the ropes binding his hands and feet. His mathematics, his logic, and his innate intuition for engineering all came out without any hindrance, and he got a very high score—so high that even he himself could hardly believe it.

With this score, he can finally apply to schools in the "engineering and technology" category, and this time he doesn't have to put all his eggs in one basket; he can apply to several!

Did we win...?

He still listed Moscow State University as his first choice.

But this time he still failed to get into Moscow State University.

Because there were simply too many applicants for Moscow State University. After the education reforms, children from all the constituent republics of the Soviet Union could compete for places at Moscow State University based on their exam scores.

Students from Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan, the Baltic states... even some Eastern European countries are all applying to Moscow State University! This door, which used to be partially closed by connections and regional differences, is now open to everyone fairly—and the result is that the best students from the entire Soviet Union and even the entire Warsaw Pact have flocked here!

The competition was fiercer than ever before. Rustam scored very high, but he still fell just short of the mark among a group of equally, or even more, outstanding children from all over the country.

So he missed his target school and ended up applying to the Computer Science program at Tashkent University.

Tashkent University is a good local university in Uzbekistan, with a decent computer science program. But Rustam was still unwilling to give up; he was just a tiny bit away from Moscow!

He tasted the sweetness of fairness—this time he truly lost due to his ability, not because of his background.

But that's precisely why he was even more unwilling to accept it! He knew he had the ability, and he didn't want to just give up like that!

Just when he was feeling resentful, he heard about another path—

Students enrolled under targeted contracts.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

There is an agricultural-industrial-research consortium near Tashkent.

Like the others that Slava has promoted nationwide, this consortium is built around information nodes, computing centers, and data terminals. It manages the surrounding cotton production, processing, and transportation, uploading production data to information nodes and relying on the computing center for allocation.

This consortium is undergoing rapid information technology transformation, and what it lacks most are computer-savvy technicians.

The consortium is eager for talent, but Rusta has no way to serve his country. What a coincidence!

The consortium can sign targeted contracts with universities to train the personnel it needs. Even better, this consortium has exchange and cooperation with Tashkent University on one end, and on the other end—because it is part of the Slavana national information system—it also has talent and research exchanges with Moscow State University.

And so a path Rustam could never have dreamed of unfolded before him.

The terms offered to him by the consortium were as follows:

He can first sign a targeted contract with the consortium. With this contract, he can study general education at Tashkent University for two years. During these two years, he can build a foundation at Tashkent University while preparing for the entrance exam to Moscow State University.

As a student under a targeted contract, his admission requirements for Moscow State University are lower than the university's normal admission score—because he has a consortium as his employer, providing a guarantee.

In exchange, he was to sign a five-year service contract with the consortium, not a regular three-year one.

If he succeeds, and two years later he is admitted to Moscow State University—then he will go to Moscow to study the books of his dreams. After graduating from Moscow State University, he will return to the union and work for it for five years.

If he fails to get into Moscow after two years, he will stay at Tashkent University to finish his computer science degree. After graduation, he will be assigned to work for three years in the Soviet Union in Novosibirsk.

Rustam held the contract and looked at it for a long time.

It's a gamble. If he wins, he can go to Moscow State University, at the cost of working for the Union for two more years after graduation. If he loses, he won't be left with nothing—he has a degree from Tashkent University and a job in Novosibirsk, which is also a respectable and stable path.

Novosibirsk was a major center for Soviet scientific research, and the Soviet military also cooperated with it. Working there for three years might lead to a job in a military-industrial enterprise, which would be a great deal!

Unbeknownst to him, the Soviet Buran space shuttle had entered its final testing phase, and Slava would increase its investment in space at the end of the year, further increasing the demand for computers.

In short, whether he wins or loses, he will not be thrown back into the cotton field as he was in 1987 after failing the exam once, with no second chance.

Rustam looked up and gazed out the window.