Education or exile: why more applicants are failing the NMT
For the fourth year in a row, Ukraine is holding a national multi-subject test (NMT) instead of the traditional UPE. It was introduced as a solution because of the security situation and was intended not to deprive young people of education in Ukraine during a full-scale war. And that decision was a successful one. It did allow thousands of Ukrainian applicants to enter, to study, to get a specialty.
But in the third year of the war, the purpose for which the NMT was developed seems to have been completely forgotten by its current organizers. And instead of promoting access to education for Ukrainian children in Ukraine, the authors of the NMT have turned it into a barrier and a test. Instead of an adequate tool for testing knowledge, the UMT has become a source of scandals, misunderstandings, and even (I am not afraid to say it directly) a reason for young people’s decisions to leave Ukraine.
And in order not to be unsubstantiated, here are some illustrative figures.
Thus, in 2022, the MES for the first time decided to conduct the NMT. An applicant could get rating points starting from one correct task in each block (Ukrainian, math, history). This allowed:
- ensure accessibility of enrollment even for those applicants who, due to the war, could not fully prepare;
- reduce the psychological barrier for the participants, because points were awarded for the minimum correct result in each of the three blocks;
- to expand the opportunities for admission to a larger number of graduates, including those who found themselves in the temporarily occupied territories or were forced to go abroad.
Thus, the MES then demonstrated: “every graduate is important”, and despite the outbreak of war has the right to education at home guaranteed by the Constitution of Ukraine.
In 2022, 99% of participants passed the NMT! In a super-tough period for the country.
What happened next?
In 2023, a threshold score of 10% correct answers was set for each academic subject included in the NMT. As a result, 2023 – in the midst of the war – became an “anti-record” year in terms of the percentage of failures among graduates.
At that time, 63% of entrants (more than 10,000) failed to pass the 140-point multi-subject test in mathematics, and 30% failed in Ukrainian language.
Shocking figures.
But despite such egregious figures, instead of looking for ways to adapt the conditions of enrollment to the war and to the preservation of youth in the country, in 2024 the Ministry of Education and Science again raises the threshold score – up to 15% of correct answers.
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And now 2025.
Based on the results of the NMT-2025, we received a sharp increase in the number of those who did not pass the threshold.
Overall, 14.1% of participants failed the test. Mathematics was not passed by 11.4% of applicants (14,686 people), which is even more than in 2023. Physics was not passed by about 10% of participants, and chemistry – 5.5%.
But humanities subjects show good indicators. Only 0.3% of applicants failed Ukrainian language, 0.15% – history of Ukraine, 0.07% – geography, 0.06% – biology, and 2.8% – English.
Thus, it is not logical to write it all off on poor preparation of young people. It cannot be that teachers teach well in some subjects under war conditions and poorly in others. And, yes – under stress, under shelling and sounds of sirens every night.
That is why this year thousands of applicants to the Ukrainian ZVO were “not allowed” by the NMT, its authors, its organizers, who, as if on purpose, play along with the war and add challenges to our already maximally heroic schoolchildren.
After that we are surprised that young people actively go abroad. We attribute everything exclusively to the war, without recognizing the failures of the work of specialized educational officials, who, instead of motivating young Ukrainians to stay at home, seem to be doing the opposite.
It is quite natural that with such an attitude Ukrainian youth will continue to choose western ZVO. And a significant part, believe me, does it against their own will. And it is because of such unadapted to the conditions of war rules of admission, silence of own mistakes on the part of the Ministry of Education and Science, and constant attempts to shift the responsibility for everything on the heads of allegedly bad teachers, or allegedly incapable students, that we as a state are losing the most valuable thing we have.
Human capital!
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