Students face testing times over assessment

Kathryn Lewis

• Last Updated: January 22. 2009 8:35PM UAE / January 22. 2009 4:35PM GMT

When Ahmad Majed, a 17-year-old Palestinian student in Abu Dhabi, sat down to take his first-term maths examination he was surprised to find that he was not at all prepared.

“The questions have nothing to do with the books, they are all IQ questions. I mean, I’m not a clever person. What shall I do?”

Ahmed’s maths score dropped from around 80 per cent to 38 per cent and his average dropped from 89 to 75 per cent.

Ahmed is one of many students to perform poorly on a new set of Ministry of Education examinations that were issued in December. Some have asked the Ministry of Education to change how their final grades are calculated to more accurately reflect the difficulty of the tests.

Educators said the new exams, which move away from memorisation of facts and figures, were necessary to provide an accurate picture of student performance.

“Grades are grades,” said Dr Clifton Chadwick, a senior lecturer in the faculty of education at the British University in Dubai. “The idea of changing them just because someone petitions you is not a very serious approach.”

Dr Chadwick’s sentiment is in line with the position taken by the Ministry of Education. In a press briefing on Tuesday, the minister announced that his agency has decided to move away from tests that do not reflect the “true abilities” of pupils.

Dr Chadwick said he was not surprised that 40 per cent of students who took the new Ministry of Education grade 12 exam had failed.

Neither was Mike Helal, a researcher who recently published a study on Dubai’s results on another test, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). Mr Helal said that learning across the UAE was “perhaps not as inclusive or analytically based” as it should be.

Dubai’s TIMSS results, released in December, showed that pupils studying the national curriculum in state schools posted the lowest scores, lagging substantially behind their peers in private schools.

TIMSS surveys found that five times as many students in Dubai were taught by teachers who did not graduate in education than the international average. Only one per cent of Grade 4 maths and science teachers in Dubai have a master’s or higher degree, according to the research.

Dr Chadwick said low achievement was linked to outmoded forms of instruction still used in state schools. He added that he did not think that state schools were adequately preparing pupils to be critical thinkers.

“The education system in general is very resistant to change, not just in this country but in any country,” said Dr Chadwick. “I think we can presume that people were told to start teaching [critical thinking skills] and they are not doing it. The teacher delivers the content and the student has to memorise it.”

But parents say students are the real losers in the new examination scheme. The mother of Hussein Koujan, a 17-year-old Syrian, blames the school system. Mrs Koujan said instructors had not adequately prepared pupils for the exams and stressed that they were not qualified to teach such demanding material.

“It is not wrong to make questions harder but it should be done gradually, and both students and instructors should be trained for that change.”

She said her son’s grades in maths and physics had fallen from 97 per cent to 79 per cent, and that his overall average had fallen from 97 per cent to 91 per cent.

“Year 12 is a fate-defining stage of the student’s life,” Mrs Koujan said, adding that her son’s exam results would play a role in what he does after high school.

Mr Helal said he believed that testing analytical skills should not be discouraged. But, he added: “We have to realise that it is not feasible to assess what is not being taught or experienced in many classes around the UAE.”

He said the change in the examinations was “in the students’ best interest”, stressing that “previous exams that relied on memorisation led students down a particular outdated learning path”. But Mr Helal and Dr Chadwick both said assessments should work hand in hand with classroom techniques.

“Inclusive teaching and learning that is student-centred should be targeted along with an updated form of assessment designed to gauge analytical skills – not just factual memory.”

klewis@thenational.ae