Ranjit Podder :
Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examinations are important for the secondary students as they sit for these public examinations virtually for the first and the second times respectively in their lives. These two are important because SSC and HSC are high-stakes examinations because many things such as students’ admission to next level depend on the performance at this level. A high-stakes examination is a test with important consequences for the test takers such as getting admission opportunities, a scholarship or getting a license for a profession. As a result, students, teachers and the guardians become serious to ensure better grades in these two examinations. Sometimes they cross the limit of morality for better grades; they want better grades any way even at the cost of their honesty and social prestige. They compete to be better students instead of trying to be better human beings with improved humanity. It is easier to be good students although it is more difficult to be better human beings. We will have to decide, if we want better students i.e. better results of the students devoid of human qualities or better people with humanism. It can be said for sure, education which does not promote humanity and public welfare is not education at all. Education is not about reading many books and being able to solve problems and achieving better grades, it is all about culturing and improving humanity throughout life. Our morality has so much downgraded that most people like and appreciate those teachers who leak out questions and tell the answers in the examination halls. Officers who receive bribe and push the files forward promptly, we call them good officers; they are good as they work for money; they do not misappropriate the money without doing the work speed money was given for. We certify them as good because they work for money or give back the money if they fail to do the work. How good our moral standard is!
My experiences in last 30 years show that the SSC and the HSC examinees have to face political intimidations or tests (question papers) leakage almost in every year. Some changes in the assessment system can help get rid of these nuisance. Some alternative assessment practices including continuous assessment in the educational institutions can be of great use in this regard. Instead of holding examinations the way we are doing now, we can allot 80% marks for internal assessment by the educational institutions.
And there could be 20% marks reserved for comprehensive examinations. This comprehensive examination can be organized at the end of a year or a term. In this comprehensive examination, 20 objective or short answer questions can be set from every subject and paper. It is worth mentioning that our new curriculum – 2012 allotted 20% marks for continuous assessment (CA) where teachers are supposed to assess students’ learning through class tests, different class work, and homework. Teachers can give assignment that students will complete at home and submit it to the subject teachers for evaluation. Additionally, the new curriculum also has provision to consider students’ other performances such as music, sports, behavior etc. in the progress report. This is a good idea to consider students’ overall growth, intellectual, moral, and social in the report. Those factors in the progress report can show the gradual over all development of a child and the employers can also decide what kind of candidates they would recruit for their organizations.
In order to avoid long time external examinations, students can be assessed internally through employing strategies such as keeping a learning log, recording students’ learning and behavioural traits throughout their schooling, self-assessment, peer assessment, informal assessment inside and outside the classrooms, and so on in addition to other strategies already in use. Teachers know their students better and so they can judge them more flawlessly than those who do not know them anyway. Of course, the mentioned comprehensive examination can be arranged centrally on a day for two/three hours only. Internal assessment and the comprehensive scores altogether will determine students’ results.
Another idea regarding CA can be considered. The educational institutions can keep on uploading the results of every year in the education board’s website if this is arranged and the boards can calculate the total marks and publish the results taking into account the comprehensive result.
It should be mentioned that Teachers’ Training Colleges have to upload the internal examination marks in the National University (NU) website after every semester or before the external examinations arranged by NU. Some may say that teachers may bias in awarding marks. Rate and amount of partiality is expected to be minimized if marks obtained from class six to 10 are averaged since bias is always two-way, positive and negative. If every year’s results are recorded and added, it will also show how much value the teachers have been able to add to the academic growth of the learners. If records of all classes can be preserved, teachers, schools can be held responsible for good or bad performances of students and the education authority can provide required interventions. The results of HSC examinations can also be calculated adding the results of the SSC, CA, and the comprehensive examinations results. If any of the second thoughts or combination of the said ideas can be implemented, number of class-days can also be increased.
Let us come back to internal assessment instead of one-off SSC examinations. If the SSC certificate contains the previous important activities good or bad, the young generation may feel a kind of obligation to avoid practising vices.
Additionally, the employers and others can choose them on the basis of their lived moral life during schooling. Moreover, we can get rid of this exam-related crisis every year. The way our education is being destroyed, negative impact of this is must in near future. When young learners go through illegal, illogical, immoral practices forcibly imposed on them, they may like to behave in the same way in future.
So, for the greater interest, we should devise a way where students will not have to engage in immoral and irrational activities. If CA and alternative assessment strategies are employed, cheating in examinations is expected to be minimized to a great extent. The state should take necessary steps to stop immoral practices from education sector as their impact could be long-lasting. We will have to remember that impact of activities in education is not tangible immediately but the effect, good or bad, is visible after ten/twenty years.
Secondary School Certificate (SSC) and Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) examinations are important for the secondary students as they sit for these public examinations virtually for the first and the second times respectively in their lives. These two are important because SSC and HSC are high-stakes examinations because many things such as students’ admission to next level depend on the performance at this level. A high-stakes examination is a test with important consequences for the test takers such as getting admission opportunities, a scholarship or getting a license for a profession. As a result, students, teachers and the guardians become serious to ensure better grades in these two examinations. Sometimes they cross the limit of morality for better grades; they want better grades any way even at the cost of their honesty and social prestige. They compete to be better students instead of trying to be better human beings with improved humanity. It is easier to be good students although it is more difficult to be better human beings. We will have to decide, if we want better students i.e. better results of the students devoid of human qualities or better people with humanism. It can be said for sure, education which does not promote humanity and public welfare is not education at all. Education is not about reading many books and being able to solve problems and achieving better grades, it is all about culturing and improving humanity throughout life. Our morality has so much downgraded that most people like and appreciate those teachers who leak out questions and tell the answers in the examination halls. Officers who receive bribe and push the files forward promptly, we call them good officers; they are good as they work for money; they do not misappropriate the money without doing the work speed money was given for. We certify them as good because they work for money or give back the money if they fail to do the work. How good our moral standard is!
My experiences in last 30 years show that the SSC and the HSC examinees have to face political intimidations or tests (question papers) leakage almost in every year. Some changes in the assessment system can help get rid of these nuisance. Some alternative assessment practices including continuous assessment in the educational institutions can be of great use in this regard. Instead of holding examinations the way we are doing now, we can allot 80% marks for internal assessment by the educational institutions.
And there could be 20% marks reserved for comprehensive examinations. This comprehensive examination can be organized at the end of a year or a term. In this comprehensive examination, 20 objective or short answer questions can be set from every subject and paper. It is worth mentioning that our new curriculum – 2012 allotted 20% marks for continuous assessment (CA) where teachers are supposed to assess students’ learning through class tests, different class work, and homework. Teachers can give assignment that students will complete at home and submit it to the subject teachers for evaluation. Additionally, the new curriculum also has provision to consider students’ other performances such as music, sports, behavior etc. in the progress report. This is a good idea to consider students’ overall growth, intellectual, moral, and social in the report. Those factors in the progress report can show the gradual over all development of a child and the employers can also decide what kind of candidates they would recruit for their organizations.
In order to avoid long time external examinations, students can be assessed internally through employing strategies such as keeping a learning log, recording students’ learning and behavioural traits throughout their schooling, self-assessment, peer assessment, informal assessment inside and outside the classrooms, and so on in addition to other strategies already in use. Teachers know their students better and so they can judge them more flawlessly than those who do not know them anyway. Of course, the mentioned comprehensive examination can be arranged centrally on a day for two/three hours only. Internal assessment and the comprehensive scores altogether will determine students’ results.
Another idea regarding CA can be considered. The educational institutions can keep on uploading the results of every year in the education board’s website if this is arranged and the boards can calculate the total marks and publish the results taking into account the comprehensive result.
It should be mentioned that Teachers’ Training Colleges have to upload the internal examination marks in the National University (NU) website after every semester or before the external examinations arranged by NU. Some may say that teachers may bias in awarding marks. Rate and amount of partiality is expected to be minimized if marks obtained from class six to 10 are averaged since bias is always two-way, positive and negative. If every year’s results are recorded and added, it will also show how much value the teachers have been able to add to the academic growth of the learners. If records of all classes can be preserved, teachers, schools can be held responsible for good or bad performances of students and the education authority can provide required interventions. The results of HSC examinations can also be calculated adding the results of the SSC, CA, and the comprehensive examinations results. If any of the second thoughts or combination of the said ideas can be implemented, number of class-days can also be increased.
Let us come back to internal assessment instead of one-off SSC examinations. If the SSC certificate contains the previous important activities good or bad, the young generation may feel a kind of obligation to avoid practising vices.
Additionally, the employers and others can choose them on the basis of their lived moral life during schooling. Moreover, we can get rid of this exam-related crisis every year. The way our education is being destroyed, negative impact of this is must in near future. When young learners go through illegal, illogical, immoral practices forcibly imposed on them, they may like to behave in the same way in future.
So, for the greater interest, we should devise a way where students will not have to engage in immoral and irrational activities. If CA and alternative assessment strategies are employed, cheating in examinations is expected to be minimized to a great extent. The state should take necessary steps to stop immoral practices from education sector as their impact could be long-lasting. We will have to remember that impact of activities in education is not tangible immediately but the effect, good or bad, is visible after ten/twenty years.
(The writer is an Associate Professor currently posted at Govt. Teachers’ Training College in Dhaka. He can be reached at email: [email protected])
