The Education, Science, Research and Sport Ministry wants to make cheating in high school leaving examinations more difficult by having more external teachers supervise the exams, but schools are doubtful whether they can cope with the change. According to the Pravda daily, teachers from other schools already take part in supervising school leaving exams, but there aren't enough of them to cover every classroom, meaning that they tend to flit from one group of students to another. This means that students are left alone with teachers that they know for considerable periods of time.
According to the planned change, at least one external teacher would supervise a group of students throughout an exam. In addition, the external staff member should teach a different subject from the one tested. Schools are concerned that they won't be able to organise supervision under such a change, however. Pavel Sadloň, the head teacher of Ladislav Sára Street Grammar School in Bratislava pointed out that students at his school sit the exams in ten separate locations, but only two external teachers are used at the moment. The change would mean that eight more teachers from other schools would have to be brought in, while more of the school's own teachers would have to go elsewhere, he stated, noting that teaching of younger students continues during the exams. Exams in the same subjects have to take place on the same day throughout the country, so it isn't possible to stagger them in order to make organisation easier, added head teacher of the Hotel Academy on Hlinská Street in Žilina Helena Milčevová. However, Romana Kanovská, director of the National Institute for Certified Assessment of Education (NUCEM), notes that cheating is still obviously widespread in Slovak schools. Sometimes a whole group of students answers nearly all the questions correctly, while in some cases the whole group answers the same question incorrectly.
