The problem arising in Ukrainian civil society today is deficit of objective criteria that ensure comparison and competition of specialists, organizations, services, leading to improvement of their quality. The situation is a result of absence of objective standardized quality control of primary, secondary and higher education.

There are objective historical reasons explaining why Ukraine is dealing today with such a problem. First of all, it is a de facto prohibition of objective methods of educational measurement during a long period of time (almost half a century) in the former USSR. The second reason is other philosophy of education – process-oriented rather than result-oriented. And the third reason is absence of a free labor market of specialists: higher education does not function in the market environment, but fulfils determined state orders. But now the situation is changing.

In Ukraine, medicine turns to be the first area to apply unified quality control of education by implementation of medical licensing examination based on scientific well-founded and world-wide used standardized testing. Starting from 1996, Medical Licensing Examination Implementation Project (MLE Project) is in process. Three integrated exams (as parts of licensing examination) were piloted at 20 medical schools of Ukraine: "Krok 1 Medicine" exam in basic medical sciences, "Krok 2 Medicine" exam in clinical sciences and "Krok 2 Stomatology" exam in clinical dentistry sciences.

This research project supported by OSI-Budapest Fellowship Program is a contribution to MLE Project, as it directly corresponds with one of three objectives for MLE Project: "To create and implement system of organizing-methodology measures to provide realization of feedback link between results of standardized testing and organization of teaching process at medical schools of Ukraine."