How useful are primary and junior public examinations?
SHOULD we not have a reasonably reliable way of assessing what students learn in primary and secondary schools and how the schools and teachers perform? Indeed we should. But the nationwide public examinations at the end of class five and eight is not the right way and the harm caused by it far outweighs any benefit.
The results of this year's public examinations announced on Tuesday and the official hype surrounding it highlight the problems.
Over 5.2 million children sat for the two exams; 97.9% and 90.5% passed respectively at the primary and junior secondary levels. Of those who passed, 7.5% were declared to be in the super-achiever category with grade point average (GPA) 5. The rest were in the GPA 4 or lower category. What does this mean in respect of student learning and performance of the education system?
Not much. The exams are for all the various subjects taught in primary and junior levels and are based on certain specified contents of the textbook. The exams test the capacity of students to memorise and reproduce the texts rather than to demonstrate actual skills and competencies of reading, writing and mathematics.
The Directorates of Primary Education and Secondary Education, faced with the question of providing evidence of competencies of students, have been carrying out sample surveys of students at grade levels 3, 5 and 8. The survey results, not publicised much, are revealing. The 2013 national student assessment sample survey showed that only a quarter of the students in grade five achieved the competencies specified in the curriculum. At grade level 8, 44% in Bangla and 35% in math achieved the designated competencies.
The assessment results are in sharp contrast to the primary completion and JSC exam results. No amount of arguments about the differences between the assessment and the public examination can explain away the contradiction.
The education authorities, question-setters, schools and teachers, all seem to have found a way to show good results in the examination. The public exams also have given a new boost to the private coaching business.
There are more serious concerns than the fact that the tests measure only the students' ability to memorise certain textbook content rather than their skills and competencies. The exams have been made high-stake for no useful purpose. They place a heavy psychological burden on the students and their parents. They declare a small proportion of the 10-year old children to be super-performers and undermine the self-esteem and confidence level of the rest.
The exams compel teachers and schools to divert their efforts to prepare children for the tests rather than guide them to really learn the basics in literacy and numeracy as well as thinking and reasoning.
A high stake public examination with competitive grading of students at the primary level is not the practice in the rest of the world any longer. Assessment is undertaken basically at the school level. Many countries do have a system of assessing core competencies through standardised tests. But these tests are used for diagnosing the performance of schools and teachers and not for public grading of individual students.
National Education Policy 2010 emphasised competency-based assessment of learning, moving away from memorisation, school-based continuing evaluation of students, and upazila-based assessment of system performance. The policy proposed only one national public examination for school education at the end of secondary education after grade 12.
When the primary education completion examination was introduced in 2010 and the Junior Secondary exam in 2012, many educationists expressed their concern about it. The objections did not receive a fair hearing. Decision-making in our education system is often dependent on individual predilections of political and bureaucratic personalities rather than a thorough technical and professional consideration of pros and cons in the particular context of Bangladesh, taking account of international experience.
What should be done now? The two ministries for school education (another anomaly not found anywhere else) should jointly convene an expert meeting about the steps to be taken to make school-based assessment of learning at primary and junior level effective. The meeting also should consider ways of making schools and teachers answerable for their performance without penalising students. National student assessment that has been on-going every two years can show the way for this purpose.
The writer is Professor Emeritus at BRAC University.
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