Back-to-back assignments stifle students

CAROL Da Costa-Rogue pulls up people who want public exams for Queensland students. She can recall the years back when the radical hippie “Radford system” of the ’70s threw out public exams – and she says it did a fine job.

It is gut-wrenching that some Queensland students fail because they cannot assemble endless essays for every subject. Kids here cannot find time to exercise, do homework and love learning when they are doing an insane number of assignments back-to-back. This runaway train must be stopped so that children can study instead of cut-and-paste, and spend time with their families again. A. M. Bailey, B Dent Sc Grad Dip Ed Holland Park West NO EDUCATIONAL system nor assessment regime is 100 per cent perfect. Those criticising the new approach with an external examination, recommended to the Newman government and thankfully taken up by Kate Jones, fail to recognise the fact that the current OP system has an external examination called the QCS. This bizarre QCS examination supposedly assesses 49 core skills and this serves as a basis to “moderate” all subjects.

The proposed system, if implemented correctly with 50 per cent weighting, will still have internal teacher assessments and an external examination in each specific subject. External examination results should be used to scale internal assessments.

This is the approach similar to that used throughout the civilised world. Merv Myhill, Townsville