Penza, 20 February 2015. PenzaNews. Parents of 11th form students of the Vachelay village school addressed the acting Minister of Education of the Penza region Alexander Voronkov with a request to not close down the Uniform State Exam station at Sosnovoborsk.

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“As for the reasons of our request: this school year, our children are barred from taking their Uniform State Exam in our Sosnovoborsk area. Seemingly, there is nothing bad about it, and the kids are smart enough to take the exam in Kuznetsk, but let’s look deeper. Six students live 5 km away from their school, in Nizhny Myval village. These students must rise at 6 am on the exam day, ride 5 km to their school, and 12 km more to Sosnovoborsk – a total of 17 km to the gathering point, and then 30 km more on a bus to Kuznetsk. 3 hours of commute to take their exam at 10 am, and our children will probably not get to have any snack in the bus (with all the worries, they won’t think about it). The exam will take 4 hours, so a kid will be left for 7-8 hours without a meal,” says the group letter published in the “Ask the minister” section of the Education Ministry website.

According to its text, the parents are concerned the children may lose their senses from lack of a proper meal and the imposed stress.

“All your innovations null all our aspirations. A child from a village has no good opportunity to take his state exam. The parents of children from our school have but one request, but one plea: please preserve the Sosnovoborsk USE station, let our children have equal opportunities to pass their exams,” stresses the letter signed by eight families.

In a reply to it, these families were offered links to Roskomnadzor recommendations that introduce all-encompassing USE realtime video monitoring measures.

The reply from Alexander Voronkov also included links to the edict of the Russian Ministry of Education dated December 26 2013, according to which each exam station must be attended by no less than 15 and no more than 25 school students and graduates.

“The list of USE stations in the Penza region for 2015 has changed according to these laws. Their numbers were reduced by 37% compared to 2014 (from 45 to 28). The students from the Sosnovoborsk area are directed to Kuznetsk to take their Unified State Exam. The students will be transferred by special buses according to the edict of the Russian government No. 1177, dated December 17 2013, ‘On rules of organized transfer of children by buses (with amendments)’,” says the reply from the acting Penza region Minister of Education.