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Often enough the word ‘examination’ conjures up an image of fear and dread and that nervous feeling in the stomach that refuses to go away. This once a year exercise for most Pakistani school-going and college-going students never fails to engender a do or die situation. As a result, at the end of the academic year, parents ensure their child goes for ‘tuition’.
The tuition culture has become a parallel system of education — as nearing the examinations tuition is a must to gain a higher grade or to be promoted into the next class. The hype is so all consuming that it does not matter what methodology is applied to gain success. The less time consuming, efficient system of rote learning takes over and thinking skills and creativity are discarded as long as success in the examination is assured.
In Pakistan, only a small minority has over the years realised the crucial role examinations play in providing the base for a qualitative learning experience. Three decades back, Matriculation examination was a standardised school leaving qualification. The mafia soon turned it into an examination with irregularities such as cheating and coercion to sit the examination and pass. Papers were leaked and the credibility of the examination could never be established again.
The standards set for the examination also fell and today, it is looked down upon as a second best choice to the British O-Levels. The same applies now to the 12th grade examination — FA/FSc — which should be the foundation stone for a college admission. So far, our local examinations face immense challenges to match international standards and reliability. Efforts to upgrade examinations have been undertaken from time to time but the end result has been minimal. Some years back, an Australian intervention to introduce Structure of Learning Outcomes (SOLO) Taxonomy for assessment has been tried but was not instituted or implemented.
Examinations are the standard bearers of quality education. The curriculum’s aims and objectives are reflected and embodied in the examination or evaluation of the learning that has taken place in the classroom. Moreover, the teaching methodology is also based on the curriculum’s aims and objectives. In fact, there is no divide between curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. All three are inextricably linked in the learning process.
However, the mindset in Pakistan takes examinations to be separate from the learning process. The attitude is that “We’ll deal with the examination at the end of the year — why bother now in the classroom?” The result is that students rush to tuition centres to learn ‘HOW’ to tackle the examination questions. What is not integrated into the school curriculum makes hay (while the sun shines) for those who run tuitions in the evenings.
As Pakistani teachers are not trained in the profession, most are ignorant of tm for educational assessment for use in the validity and planning of an assessment system. Questions are set according to Benjamin Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives which differentiates between the lower and higher order of thinking skills.
Memorization is the lowest order of thinking and the highest order of thinking skill is creativity. If examination questions only tap memory skills then the quality of the examination can be said to be of low quality. However, if questions ask students to demonstrate understanding and application of knowledge with reasoning, evaluation and analytical skills, then the examination is of a high standard. Consequently, the quality of learning is ensured and your education system makes sure that it is producing creative and innovative people.
Furthermore, examinations have acquired high stakes for grading into the next step of the educational ladder. Often one hears the refrain “But there is so much competition, my child has to take tuition to get the grades.” This has had an adverse effect on the teaching and learning of students. Students are drilled to gain maximum marks and teaching becomes focused on ‘teaching to the test’.
Selective content of the syllabus likely to come in the examination is taught and other relevant chapters are glossed over. In fact, the education system in Pakistan has already become focused on teaching to the test and the gains of knowledge acquisition are no longer understood or aspired for.
The revision to the curriculum in 2006 has defined clear learning objectives to take the emphasis away from rote learning. Multiple choice questions have been added to the Matriculation examination to improve assessment of learning outcomes. Nevertheless, the quality of the examination is still a far cry from a standardised international benchmark. To improve teaching and learning in the classroom which often is teaching to the test, examination qualifications must achieve a higher level of performance. If thinking skills are tested in the examination, teachers and students will be forced to take on the new methodology and quality of learning will be raised automatically.
Uniformity in the education system means the same high, standardised examination for all across the board to determine and guarantee quality in learning objectives. Consequently, change must now start with the examination system to bring about that focus on quality learning sadly lacking in our system. It is hoped that reform in the system will start with providing a high-quality examination system for the youth of Pakistan.
The writer is an educational consultant based in Lahore.
