Is standardisation of results used properly?

FOR the National Senior Certificate (NSC) Class of 2020, the coronavirus pandemic brought major changes to teaching and learning, which required a shift to distance learning.

Many countries cancelled their academic years and opted for school-based assessment only, however, through this experience, we had some notable successes. So, amid Covid-19, has the standardisation of examination results been used properly?

Of course, educational leaders are increasingly relying on standardised tests and results to determine the progress of pupils. They are using these tests to make decisions with highstakes consequences for pupils, which include admission to universities or technical institutions.

When tests are used to make educational decisions for students, they are supposed to accurately measure a student’s abilities, knowledge, skills, or needs, in ways that do not discriminate.

Given the growing emphasis on standardised tests as measures of the performance of our schools and our children, we must monitor the use of these tests to ensure that they do not deny educational opportunities to students based on race and ethnicity.

I am made to believe that the purpose of standardisation is to deal with factors that create unfair conditions to cohorts that sit for the exams from year to year so that one cohort shouldn’t feel like it was born or wrote the exams in a wrong year.

Umalusi, the country’s education quality assurance body, defines standardisation as “the accepted process used to reduce fluctuations in pupil performance that result from identified factors within the examination processes themselves rather than from the knowledge, aptitude and abilities of the pupils”. I have been looking forward to Umalusi’s statement on the approval of the results to establish what the organisation has done to standardise – that is, mark the average results up, down or leave them as raw as they are.

Unfortunately, instead of promoting educational excellence for all students, high-stakes tests often unfairly deny educational opportunities to students based on their race and ethnicity.

I was shocked to realise the hard work of the class of 2020 has been used against them. Their only sin is they conquered Covid-19 conditions and were poised to be not only the most resilient, but strongest class ever.

However, the move to more remote education has highlighted significant challenges that distance learning poses for poverty-stricken families lacking computer devices or having problems with internet connectivity.

The strength of the Class of 2020 was evident in the data, information from marking processes shared with Umalusi and the Evidence Based Report which was presented to them on January 31, 2021. This has further been demonstrated in university entrance and distinctions results shared before standardisation.

It was even wrong for Umalusi to compare this class to any other class, because they had to contend with conditions that no class has ever faced.

It was also wrong for Umalusi to use exactly the same yardstick in standardising the results of the Department of Basic Education with extremely small assessment bodies which don’t have any justification to even exist.

These are not comparable in size and shape.

I have indicated several times before: these should just be merged into one examinations council.