THE questions for Russia’s new school-leaver exams will be picked out of a lottery barrel live on television, as part of a move to combat endemic corruption.

June sees the start of a national system of standardised written exams in Russian literature and maths. Hundreds of thousands of 11th-grade pupils in many of Russia’s 89 regions will have to answer eight set questions for their six-hour composition and maths tests. What these questions are will not be known until on the morning of the exam, when teachers switch on the television.

The precise means of announcing the exam questions is a matter for regional education authorities, but federal experts have prepared 35 different packets each containing eight questions. Each region will choose only one packet and many are opting for lottery selection as the fairest method.

In Saratov, a region 500 miles south-east of Moscow, a televised dry run for the exam lottery was screened last week. A small girl picked a numbered ball after spinning a transparent plastic drum containing the 35 options.

The complete range of 280 questions for the literature composition tests will be released to schools early next month to allow staff and students two months to read and revise, but the precise selection will not be known until the morning of the exam.

Critics say the federal ministry has rushed in a complex and major reform without adequate planning. But those in favour say the new tests will better gauge students’ knowledge and stop teachers taking bribes to reveal questions in advance.

Natalia Buchkova, a schools inspector in the Rtishchevo district of Saratov, welcomed the new system. “It will be more objective and solve the vexed question of who should really receive silver or gold medals,” she said in a reference to the hotly contested and corruptible practice of giving top students special leaving awards.

But Ludmila Fakhredinova, deputy head of Rtishchevo’s School No. 2, said provincial schools lacked the resources to prepare students for such a wide range of themes. Many towns lacked libraries with sufficient supplies of books and provincial television reception could be problematic.

Student Sergei Bumagin, 16, who will sit the exams in June, summed up the mood among pupils at the school: “The tests will be much more difficult and our scores will suffer.”