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Parents to Watch Their Children Taking Exams Thanks to Video Cameras

To reduce cheating in graduation exams, a video surveillance system will be installed by early April. Denis Abramov

Video cameras monitoring high-school graduation exams will transmit their footage live, allowing parents to watch their children and their classmates taking the test, the education and science minister said.

Video surveillance equipment, which will be introduced next year in a bid to reduce cheating, will be installed in "practically every classroom used for taking the test," Education and Science Minister Dmitry Livanov told NTV television channel on Sunday.

Parents will be able to watch their children taking the test live, Livanov said.

The authorities would also post "federal observers" in examination rooms, Livanov said.

"Increasing transparency, increasing public control over the unified exam is one of the major directions of our work," he added. "When everybody learns to take the exam honestly, there will be no need for these control measures."

The video surveillance system should begin functioning by early April, Livanov said earlier.

Critics of the Unified State Exam have attributed much of the cheating to well-connected or well-heeled students purchasing test questions ahead to time, or to corrupt officials doctoring the answers of some students in exchange for bribes, problems that video cameras are unlikely to remedy.

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