Kseniia and Nika will face their most daunting HSC exam first
By Mary Ward
More than 71,600 year 12 students will begin their HSC exams this week, starting with English on Tuesday.
For Kseniia Vereshchak and Nika Kovalenko, who moved to Sydney from Ukraine in March 2022, the exam is the most daunting one on their timetable.
While the pair have felt ahead of the NSW coursework in some subjects, particularly mathematics, bringing themselves up to the level of English needed for the final year exams was a challenge. But, easily speaking and joking in their second language, they should be confident in their preparations.
HSC students Nika Kovalenko, left, and Kseniia Vereshchak. Credit: Louise Kennerley
“With English, it’s sort of ‘fake it ’til you make it’,” laughed Kseniia, speaking with a surprisingly thick Australian accent on her vowels.
She will take the English EAL/D (English as an additional language or dialect) exams. Nika has opted for English Advanced.
The girls both came to Australia to live with family after leaving Ukraine during the first weeks of Russia’s February 2022 invasion.
Nika and her family left their home south of Kyiv to stay with her father’s sister, while Kseniia’s mother’s sister, who had moved to Australia years earlier, was able to provide them with shelter as they fled Kharkiv, a frequent target of Russian attacks.
Nika, with her parents Vitalii and Alla, wants to study environmental sciences at university after completing her HSC. Credit: Louise Kennerley
In their first months, they and others did not know how long they would be away from Ukraine, so they remained enrolled in the Ukrainian school system, doing distance education late into the night after spending the day in English courses.
The long hours were not sustainable. Nika enrolled at Port Hacking High School, while Kseniia attended Pymble Ladies College on a scholarship.
Most of Kseniia’s old school friends now live across Europe, and none are still in Kharkiv. Nika sometimes receives messages from friends still in Ukraine, which remind her of how different their lives have become.
“It is quite scary to receive a message of someone who is saying there is bombing outside their window when I used to live two streets away from them,” she said.
The girls are both excited to attend university next year. It is a dream that has been made much easier by a decision by Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke to offer “resolution of status” visa pathways to Ukrainians currently on humanitarian temporary visas.
The new visas, being offered on an invitation-only basis, will give the girls the same rights and benefits as permanent residents, including access to HECS.
Burke said he would never forget telling the girls they could apply to become permanent residents at a meeting with Ukrainian family groups earlier this year.
“You could see that joy when someone knows that their future and Australia’s future are going to be part of the same story,” he said.
Kseniia, with her parents Igor and Alyona, wants to study civil engineering with the hopes of rebuilding the city her family fled. Credit: Louise Kennerley
Nika is interested in an environmental sciences course, while Kseniia plans to study civil engineering, which she hopes will, one day, take her back to Kharkiv.
“There is a lot of opportunity to rebuild,” she said.
HSC exams will begin on Tuesday and continue until November 8.
More from Campus, our higher education hub
- Degrees that earn graduates the biggest pay packets
- Where Australia’s universities rank among the world’s best
- Here are five things I learnt from studying in Paris for six months
- Where to start when you don’t know what career you want
Look for courses using interactive search tool
The Morning Edition newsletter is our guide to the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up here.