Let’s get rid of high school ministry exams

There are better and less costly ways to measure student achievement, James Watts says.

Many Quebec high school students, particularly those who’ve just completed Secondary IV and V, are just now finding out their marks in courses where there is a ministry exam.

These standardized high school exams, which weigh heavily in students’ final marks, are a nightmare for students and a nuisance for teachers and principals. They must be a headache for Ministry of Education administrators, too.

There are three main problematic areas: substance, slip-ups and security.

Exam substance: There is often poor co-ordination between what the teacher teaches and what the ministry tests.

Exam slip-ups: Often questions on exams are eliminated because “the question is unclear” or “two of the multiple choice answers are correct!”

Exam security: Recently we have had exams and answer keys appearing on social media before the examination time.

Exams are developed by the Ministry of Education, delivered to schools and completed by students. They are then corrected, and marks are posted on the ministry’s website. It seems like a long, complicated process for assessments that rarely test a student’s true ability or potential.

And the cost! To produce three different exams every year, for multiple subjects, to deliver them to each school, and then to manage the grading and the recording of marks, must squeeze an already tight budget. If we could reallocate the funds to individual classrooms, we might have a chance of meeting Minister of Education Sébastien Proulx’s target of an 85 per cent graduation rate by 2030.

We can. What is required is a little more faith in our schools, our principals and our teachers. If schools developed their own final exams, they would be able to test their students using the vocabulary they have used to teach the

What is required is a little more faith in our schools, our principals and our teachers.

material. If schools managed their own exams, errors would be caught and corrected in-house. If schools controlled their own exams, security would be greatly improved. There would be no delivery costs and no excessive printing. Finally, teachers would correct the exams and results would be published without delay.

If we must have exams and we are serious about improving the graduation rate, then we should be repositioning the exams. Failed exit exams are a major cause of student drop out. These exams should be replaced with entrance exams. Too many students are entering their next level of education without the required skills. Junior and senior high school entrance exams would determine whether a student has the literacy skills to receive and respond to material that will be taught. If a student is not ready, then it is at the entry point that the school system must react. It is unconscionable to shuffle failing students through the system until they drop out.

After high school, CEGEPs should also have entrance exams — managed by the CEGEPs. By the way, there are no standardized final exams for CEGEP students, other than the English- or French-language exit exams, and yet graduates from our CEGEPs are able to gain entrance to universities around the world.

There may be concerns that allowing schools to manage their own exams opens up the possibility of grade inflation or cheating. But either a teacher has integrity or he doesn’t; cheating would be possible now. Teachers tend to be a lot more vigilant with their own test material than they are with the exams that are foisted upon them.

Once students leave school, they discover that there are very few written exams. Most problems are solved through research and dialogue. Ultimately, we need to wean ourselves off exams. There are a number of alternative methods to verify a student’s understanding of classroom learning, including portfolios, presentations, projects, re-enactments and research papers. Giving schools more autonomy will ultimately improve the overall content and delivery of courses, increase the success rate, better reflect the reality beyond school and greatly reduce costs for the Ministry of Education.