We should be looking at making changes to the exams system rather than dismantling it
IAIN Macwhirter makes some salient points in his article on the future of exams and the SQA (“Somerville discovers something worse than grading by algorithm”, June 13). As a teacher of 15 years’ experience across both the SQA and international systems I sympathise with pupils in terms of the stress that they feel with regards to exams. However, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, standardised exams are the worst way of assessing pupils until you look at every other option.
Rather than a wholesale dismantling of this system, why not changes to reduce the burden? I’ve yet to see a good argument for why there should be time limits for exams (within reason, of course). Also, many systems have a resit diet in the autumn to allow pupils an opportunity of another shot at the exam without having to wait an entire year. There’s also an argument for having more than one paper for a subject so that different skills can be tested separately.
I’d also like to touch on one other important point that is mentioned by Mr Macwhirter in the passing – the Curriculum for Excellence. Many of those in charge of education in Scotland and those who hold prestigious posts at universities seem to hope that everyone forgets that they rammed through this curriculum against the advice of professionals, particularly those who worked in secondary. I began my career as it was being introduced and there was near-universal opposition to its vague format and hurried start from teachers. Yet teachers who voiced concern were called dinosaurs and told that they simply didn’t understand the modern world and were stuck in their ways.
A fitting start to a new age in Scottish education would be for them to be issued an apology by those who mocked and dismissed them many years ago. I won’t hold my breath.
Patrick McHugh, Cologne, Germany.
Most exams are too difficult
I APPRECIATED Iain Macwhirter’s account of the “convoluted farrago” that is the Scottish Government’s and the Scottish Qualifications Authority’s latest plan to test and grade “learners”, thereby making the wretched lives of our young people ever more stressful.
Speaking as a doctor who has been examined, excruciatingly, to breaking point, I believe the problem with most examinations is that they are too difficult. Nowadays, if you want to enter medical school, not only must you pass lots of Highers or A-levels at A+ grade, you also need to pass the UK-CAT test, or equivalent – like solving cryptic crosswords under six minutes in order to work at Bletchley Park, then compose a faultlessly worded “personal statement”, then attend for interview and satisfy all the inbuilt prejudices of the interview panel that you are “doctor material”, then spend your summer hols in the Amazon rainforest discovering a cure for cancer. Meanwhile, back home, the patients can’t find a doctor for love nor money. Well, maybe for money.
What is the purpose of an exam? It is to demonstrate, to yourself, and your mentors, that you are ready to embark upon the next stage of learning, and, finally, particularly in the case of vocational training, that you have the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to undertake the work for which you have been trained. I don’t believe that closed book examinations should be dumped just because students might have an off day. After all, you will subsequently need to perform professionally despite having an off day. And if you fail the test it’s no big deal – just resit at the next diet.
The best-designed test I ever sat was for my private pilot’s licence in New
Zealand. There were five papers. They were perfectly straightforward but you had to score 75 per cent in all of them to pass – you had to know your stuff. Then, of course, you had to fly the aeroplane with the examiner beside you, off-day or not. The format was predictable. I knew I would be subjected to an engine failure. I also knew I wouldn’t suddenly be asked to perform low-level aerobatics.
Educationalists in all disciplines similarly need to set the bar for their subject which, if cleared, will satisfy the examiners. There is no need to encourage ruthless competition by introducing difficulties, bowling googlies and yorkers (to mix the metaphor) that will identify the high fliers. The high flyers will come to the top whatever the system throws at them.
The politicians should stay out of it. Dr Hamish Maclaren, Stirling.