Simply the test is best for students

IT WAS one of those days when I wondered if April 1 had come early. Students at Glasgow University are objecting that sitting exams in person is bad for their mental health and that no-book exams rely on accumulation of knowledge rather than its application.

The poor little darlings got used to doing exams remotely during Covid. The university says that it fears advances in AI could make cheating too easy.

The university should need no reason such as AI to reinstate in-person exams and indeed it should have happened the moment the country was opened up following Covid. Exams test a student’s ability to recall information and fashion an argument from it within a given time scale, all abilities which they will need throughout their lives if they are to aspire to graduate jobs.

Can anyone imagine a GP saying “I do not need to recall where the bone is, I just need to know what to do when I find it”? or a maths teacher saying “I can’t recall the formula but I would know what to do with it when I look it up.” ? The mind boggles.

What really bothers me however is the continual harping on “mental health”.

Managing stress and challenge, things going wrong and setbacks and disappointments are just ordinary hazards of being on this earth and the young should be taught to handle rather than avoid them. Some have serious mental problems and it is an insult to them to conflate that with ordinary pressures and upsets.

When I consult professionals I want to feel they know their onions, can think straight and can do it all in the shortest possible time.

That is exactly what exams test.