Are exams fair?
People aren't always equal and neither are exams, apparently.
Exams are a frustrating but important part of academic life. They serve as a (sometimes inaccurate) assessment on the skill level and understanding of students in a particular field, and are also important for admission to a lot of educational institutions, particularly at the tertiary level.
With the current state our world is in, the university entry process has been changed radically. For one, a lot of people didn't do exams in the first place. A-Levels and GCSE's (General Certificate of Secondary Education) were cancelled in the UK altogether, with students' grades being determined by ‘teacher assessment’: things like homework, tests and students' predicted grades. Exams were carried out in most countries outside the UK (like my own country, Kenya), so we had to suffer through all the hassle of examinations.
So results day pulled around and the UK saw a record in A-Level results, with 44% of students getting A* or A grades. GG to UK students' and teachers, but it's not exactly a lie to admit that how the grades were determined affected the overall results in some way.
This situation got me thinking about how fair exams are as an assessment of students' abilities. If some students did examinations and others didn't, that creates an uneven playing field, as the different groups of students were assessed differently.
On one hand, the students who didn't do exams didn't have the pressure of examinations and thus could perform better, as they had multiple opportunities to prove their skills over a long period of time, with access to a greater source of information. One thing about exams is that they aren't a great assessment of what students have learned. A-levels and GCSE's for the most part only represent your final examination grades. You can't boil down a syllabus that takes months to teach into one two-hour paper.
On the other hand, one could argue that the stress of examinations forces students to take studying more seriously and put more effort into learning the material required (even if they forget it the minute they leave the exam hall). Students who didn't do A-levels are more likely to suffer if they go to university, as they may have not been properly assessed on material they learned when in high school, material which may be required in their university course. Predicted grades were used for all A-level candidates last year (including myself, as I was studying at the AS level), and I definitely felt like I hadn't learned everything I was supposed to, which affected my studies in the following year, when I finished my A-levels.
But there are other aspects outside of the examination itself that affect students' performance. Some students are simply more susceptible to anxiety than others. While learning how to keep calm under pressure is one thing exams are actually good for, sometimes panic can get the better of you. If a student isn't able to perform to their best degree on an exam because they are prone to succumbing to nerves, can the exam really serve as a true measure of their current skill level?
The quality of teaching is also another aspect to consider, especially now that online learning is becoming the new norm. It's quite stressful for both students and teachers to interact online as opposed to in-person, as online learning is still a relatively new method of education. Lack of equipment, slow internet connections and power outages can severely affect the quality of learning, something which I have experienced first-hand.
If the quality of teaching is compromised or a student isn't fully able to understand what they're supposed to learn, then tuition is an option. Tuition was extremely popular in my high school, to the point where it was basically seen as School: Extended Edition. Even I did a bit of tuition before my A-levels. But tutors cost money. Lots of money in some cases. Not everybody can afford tuition, even if it's needed. In such a scenario, we need to ask ourselves: Is academic success determined by the depth of your knowledge, or the depth of your parents' pocket?
I really went all in on this topic, but it's because I feel like it's a serious issue, one which doesn't just affect me, but also affects the future of the next generation. I know it's impossible to provide a 100% accurate measure of a student's level of understanding, but I feel like many current examination frameworks are critically flawed, and the pandemic has shown us just that. Hopefully we can come up with better methods of assessment in the future.
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