YOU WERE LOOKING FOR: Should Exams Be Abolished
These are only one of the millions of cases that exams have caused. The people all across the world should all begin realizing now that few can ever escape from the glistening blade of exams and yet unhurt — students, teachers and parents....
Together, these factors lead to these devastating cases that are seen nearly everywhere, in the news on television, on magazines, on newspaper and even in books — encyclopedias. Let us take a simple case for analysis. On August 29th , Lysher...
The source of stress in suicide cases of youth are more often than not exams in school and these exams are most of the time, written exams. Some students in Africa wake up 3 am in the morning just to begin revision and sometimes earlier as they are scared that they would oversleep and waste the time that they have for revision. These people are extremely poor and thus want to learn have good academics and would be willing to sacrifice their sleep for revision such that in the future, they can get a good job. They are scared that if they do not pass the first time, their parents would not have enough money for them to continue studying and then, they would drop out of school. Another collegian has got the jitters soon after his south-Mumbai college announced its prelim dates in preparation for the HSC exams. These are all great examples of students under stress of exams in poor countries. These are all great examples of how stress has disrupted the lives of teenage students.
When these cases get serious enough, they cause depression and become a serial killer. Pioneer Junior College girls suicide after receiving poor grades for their midterm exams and one of them dreaded to see the vice principal regarding her poor performance despite the fact that she used to be a very hardworking. External pressure is also one of the main reasons why students buckle under the pressure of exam stress as it is said that exam pressure is the actual one that strikes a final blow on a student and cause the student to succumb to the searing blade of exams after stress from the exams had weaken the child enough.
These external pressures can refer to stress from parents, friends or even the teacher. These pressures first originate from the exams that the students take. When a student fails to achieve or meet the expectations of his parent or teachers, almost automatically, the student would begin to feel sad and depressed and more often than not, afraid. Then, when the parents or teacher scolds the student, he or she would become further depressed and in the end loses all his or her self-esteem. The parents might also immediately sign up the child for multiple tuition classes as they feel that tuition can improve their child, therefore, further adding to the stress. Following that, if his or her classmates give the student a bad time in class, picking on the student as he had not done well and laugh and joke about it in front of him, making it even worse and may cause depression to set in, leading to suicidal thoughts.
The case of Lysher was a very good example of this since it was due to mostly external pressure that she decided to suicide. This is the case after exams. Before exams, during the period when the student is revising, the student is sometimes given unnecessary stress during revision to as the parents have great expectations of the child and the child and so, the child would be given unnecessary stress. This can in turn contribute to the already extreme stress that a child is undergoing during that period of time, leading to psychological changes and cause the child to underperform during exams and again leading to the depression of the child and ultimately to suicide. However, there are of course benefits that are receive from written exams like how they are able to let parents be able to track the abilities of the student which is important to the parents in the world since parents by nature care for their child and thus are willing to do anything for their sons to become great, however, what they do sometimes are actually harming the child, not helping the child.
Though exams can allow parents to be at rest when they know how their child is faring, however, it must be bore in mind that there are alternative ways without having written exams, the alternatives that 6 would suggest would be elaborated in later chapters. Therefore, in choosing this topic, the aim is to support the abolishment of exams and help students remove one of the greatest fear in school life, to make life in school more enjoyable, for fruitful, without exams. School life would also be less stressful and there would not be tension between the students due to the competitiveness of exams. This topic was also chosen to remove and alleviate the effects of the number 1 deadly serial killer among teenage schooling kids.
This way, the learning rate of students would also be better since without exams; the students would have passion for learning and thus would likely be interested in learning just for their own sake, not for the sake for exams. Let us do a simple analysis and take a look at the many famous and great minds in history — Bill Gates, Einstein, they definitely did not do well in their exams during school, however, they all found the element within them and shone. This proves that exams are inaccurate too and of course, rather useless and this gives the group yet more reason to support the abolishment of written exams. If any one of those famous people who had had great contributions towards the society had focused on scoring great marks for their exams, they would definitely not became who they were meant to become. Exams would limit the creativity of students, restrain their freedom of learning and of course, in some ways, discourage students from learning.
Chapter 2: Methods 2. Firstly, for the social survey, a number of 25 students who were from RI and also from various tuition centers were surveyed. About 10 teachers who were mostly from RI were also included in the survey. Firstly, the first source of information was from the Literature Review which each one of the group members had to do a review each. Basic knowledge on the subject was learnt through this articles which were written by Professors. The subject was also researched as a group as each of us brought information to share in the numerous RE meetings. After that, the social survey was also a key material. It helped us with what are the opinions of students and teachers so that its usefulness can be discovered and hence determine whether examinations are necessary.
The next material was the interview. This is probably the most important material as it provided us with the most information and also, the most accurate one, thus it was decided to hear from a teacher who has already worked in the Education System for more than 10 years. Firstly, for the Literature Review, the NLB website had to be efficiently utilized as the works there are done by qualified Professors and Writers. It was a pretty hard time finding it as there was a limited number of reviews on the NLB website. Secondly, the Social Survey, we came together to discuss what are the important questions that are needed to be asked from the public.
After that, the questions were edited so that there will be less than 10 questions. There was also difficulty in asking the pupils to answer the open-ended questions as most of them are too lazy to do so. Lastly, the interview was quite easily arranged as the teacher was a previous teacher of one of the group member. Hence, it was quite easy to contact her and to arrange a time to carry out the interview. The interview questions had been came up with as the group came together as there are a limited number of questions we can ask.
Therefore, we had to pick out the most important questions to ask. What do you think is the purpose of exams? The purpose of exams has a few objectives to achieve. The 1st one is to assess how well the students have learnt, be it for a topic, or a few topics together. Through the exams, the teachers will be able to point out the strengths and weaknesses of the students and help them to work on their weaknesses. Another reason for having exams is to use it as a form of communication between the teachers and the parents because parents would like to know how well the students have learnt.
Students reaction towards exams, I guess most of them will be quite fine with exams. They might be anxious, because I think currently, when we talk about exams to them they also in a way must be answerable to their parents so that has some form of pressure on them to perform well so most of them will feel worried. In a way it makes them feel demoralized Yeah I guess whether the child feels demoralized depends on they deal with exams and also how people around the child help him to understand the purpose of examinations. What he should do is he should perhaps learn to look at his strengths. Moving on to our 3rd question, how you think the parents of the students will react to the good or bad results of the pupils. Will they become more demanding, hence putting more pressure on the students?
I think as a parent, if we see our own children not doing well in an exam, our first reaction would be: we would probably be worried. That would be our first reaction and as to whether we will put more demand on the child, I think it depend on individual parents. They may send the child for more tuition classes. So it all depends, different parents will react differently. Do exams make your students want to learn? Does the process of preparing for the exams make them learn more? I believe yes, the process of preparing for an exam will make them learn more because, through preparation for exams, they will realize there are things they are not sure so they can ask the teacher to clarify with the teachers.
For example group work, presentations, research study, written assignments, take-home assignments etc. Unlike doing a pen-and-paper exam [which] they just have to recall what they have learnt and they just apply what they have learnt, and quite a lot of memory work even though nowadays we are moving away from memory work, we are testing them applications and so on, the demand is very different but the negative point about group project is that sometimes we may not be able to see how each individual student in the group learn. But as teachers, as the school, we need to keep the parents in the know and exam results are something very quantitative and we could use it to communicate with the parents. So it serves as a platform of communication. Usually what we would do is for every assessment that the child has done, we would like the child to know the strength and the weakness. Learning abilities of students?
Individual work. We should not be always looking why it that you have not done well is. Yes, there will be areas that need to be improved but we should also identify what are the areas that the child has done well and then praise the child for putting in the effort and for doing well so that the child as a whole, would not feel that he is a failure, this is something that we do not want the child to feel and I stress again confidence is very important, we need the child to be confident Okay, thank you very much and this marks the end of our interview. Thank you! Teo shake hands and the interview ends.
WhatsApp Exams have been a part of education systems for a very long time and probably will be with us for many more years. Exams results are officially out, and celebrations have begun. For many learners, exams seem a necessary evil. Time-consuming yet inevitable. But are exams really necessary? And are they evil?
The performance of the Kenya Certificate of Primary Education dropped noticeably this year. The top candidate scored marks, compared with last year with the number of those with marks and above falling to 9, down from 12, in and9, in An analysis of the results shows that candidates in the mark bracket rose to , from , last year. There are certain flaws in the examination system. The knowledge imparted is restricted to the syllabus. Learners are taught according to the prescribed syllabus. Nothing much is taught beyond the syllabus. When a student is unable to grasp a particular subject, they seek private tuitions or enrol themselves in coaching classes.
Books, books and no play Learners tend to cram their subjects by heart, without applying their mind. Thus, cramming enables many learners to pass examinations. Most learners look towards their examinations with an anxious mind. They, at a very young age, begin to feel the tension and stress of examinations. Examinations are just the first in a series of tests that initiate young ones into a competitive world. But the importance attached to them is unreasonably high. During the examination period and till the result is declared, not only the learners but also their parents and teachers remain tensed. It is cast as a do-or-die battle. Learners do not have enough spare time for games and are unable to give wings to their hobbies due to the burden of examinations. Failure in the examination arouses a feeling of low self-esteem and negative self-image in the minds of the learners. At times, learners break down under pressure to perform and resort to extreme measures like running away from their homes or even committing suicide.
There are instances where exams have resulted in some learners becoming so disheartened, not to mention traumatized, that some, unfortunately, commit suicide. In cases of suicide, a potential profession or organisation has potentially missed out on someone who could have helped solve significant challenging problems, or contributed valuable, imaginative new ideas, systems and inventions or built amazing teams of professionals. Today school psychologists or school counselors give them proper advice to increase the efficiency of learning in schools and handle to the pressure of examination. It is important at the outset to state that organisations must be assured that the graduates they employ have the requisite knowledge, skills, understanding and attributes required to make worthwhile contributions to that organisation. Education Cabinet Secretary George Magoha. Leakage of question papers, copying and cheating in examination halls have become a common affair. Bribery and other corrupt practices also have crept into the examination system.
Even some of the teachers check the examination papers without assessing them properly, as a result of which learners suffer. Examinations give a degree or a grade to the student. The prevailing system of education does not help the learners to make their career in life or to earn a decent living. The youth who fails to get the desired percentage of marks suffer the most. Not in my opinion. Are there ways to better determine if learning has taken place? Yes, undeniably. I would suggest that for most, the two- to three-hour sit-down, written exam in which learners are not allowed to access notes, texts or any sources of information invariably tests how well a student has retained, memorised and is able, under stress, to recall a huge stack of factual information.
Too many discussions with learners have convinced me that those with excellent memories are favoured by these exams. Memorised knowledge Most exams are narrowly focused, asking learners to list, describe, identify or explain. Some learners have been coached to master the skill of how to pass exams and demonstrate a real aptitude for doing so. However, this does not necessarily provide evidence of how capable they really are in a certain areas for, once they have finished one exam, they are busily made to cram another lot of information into their head in preparation for the next.
Is the knowledge they studied comprehensive or narrowly focused on passing the exam? How much of what they memorised can they genuinely apply to real-world situations? Learners go to school, college or university to learn. Teachers at all levels should be facilitating that learning process and a significant part of that process is providing feedback to learners about their learning to help them improve.
National exams do not provide learners with a chance to learn from their mistakes and improve. It is not usual practice to hand back the exam papers or provide individual counsel to learners about where they went wrong. One particular reason often provided by academics especially in some discipline fields for the need for National formal, written, sit-down exams is that they help overcome the plagiarism, cheating or collusion issues they see in other forms of exams. What do we want from Exams? Nothing much is taught beyond the syllabus and only examinations determine the degree or grade of a student. Cheating, leaking of question papers and other corrupt practices, that have cropped up in the examination system should be checked. The aim of education should be to equip the student to face the tough battle of life. Tests enable the teacher to know how well the student has understood the subject.
A good result makes the teacher as well as the parents happy. The effort of the teacher is rewarded when a student passes an examination and vice versa. Parents become proud of their children when they perform well in the examinations. They utilize their time for preparation. Examinations make them work hard for scoring good marks. Some schools award citations and certificate and give scholarships to those learners who excel. Such awards prompt the learners to work hard. Examinations help the teachers and the parents in analyzing the amount of labor put in by the learners in gaining knowledge.
Teaching is always followed by tests because the tests give an impression as to how well the learners have understood the subject. If he is weak in his studies, they could guide him further in the subject. Teachers and parents should appreciate the true meaning of learning which is about inculcation of knowledge, skills and attributes. However, employers value employees who can demonstrate much more than just content knowledge.
They appreciate employees who can exhibit attributes such as teamwork, good oral, written and digital communication, creative thinking, problem solving and leadership Good exams aim to provide a balanced, fair evaluation of each student. They achieve this in two ways. First, they use a variety of strategies and tasks. This gives learners multiple opportunities, in varying contexts, to demonstrate what they know and can do.
It also enables teachers to be confident in the accuracy of their judgements about each student. This requires emphasis on learning outcomes and learners ability to internalise and apply knowledge and develop affective senses to enable them to co-exist with others in society. Assuming a subject has a number of goals knowledge to learn, skills to acquire , each task should be appropriate to the specific goal or goals it is assessing. This means that a task assessing base knowledge will look different to one assessing creativity. Exams focus on extend of understanding In most disciplines, there are specific bodies of knowledge that learners are expected to learn. Physics learners, for example, might learn about thermodynamics, while history learners might learn about the cold war.
For example, history learners might be asked to choose and research a historical character in depth. Business studies learners might be asked to design the pitch for a new business seeking venture capital. These tasks develop several important higher-order thinking skills, such as analysis and decision-making. They do different things. Exams should also be fit-for-purpose. Where breadth of knowledge is important, assessment tasks that target this breadth is imperative. It is key that future doctors know the entire human body. Future teachers should know a full repertoire of teaching and learning approaches. Can exams help achieve this?. Do exams enhance learning? On a more positive note, there is evidence that both studying for and sitting exams deepens learning. Studying is like exercising. When one exercises, the muscles in use grow stronger. Likewise, the process of searching through ones memory and retrieving the relevant information strengthens that memory pathway for future uses.
This means that when newly qualified teachers, doctors, lawyers, or accountants come to retrieve information they need, it is — as a consequence of having been practised previously — now easier to access. Research tells us that learning is particularly strong when learners self-test. Rather than passively reading and remembering by rote, we want our learners to study by forming appropriate questions, searching memory for relevant responses, and knitting this information together into an appropriate answer. We think this third benefit of exams is the most exciting. Exams have been a part of education systems for a very long time and probably will be with us for many more years. Given the affection some educationists have in certain disciplines for the written end-of-semester exam, perhaps the merits of other types of exams could be better shared across disciplines.
For example, in the arts, business, law and humanities areas, the open book exam is not an uncommon method of assessment.
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