The new student evaluation system is successfully implemented and this year it is extended to the high school cycle
Answers and evidence refuting some opposition claims
The Minister of Education, Sports and Youth Mr. Prodromos Prodromou in his statements today at the Ministry on the new system of evaluation of pupils said: "It is really troubling that some people are still discussing and speaking out against assessment in secondary education. Is the real issue the assessment or is it what and how it is taught and whether students are achieving the intended learning outcomes?
Assessment has always existed and should exist.
What is it that has changed? With the new student assessment system we have a single, structured and uniform assessment process for all schools, for all children. Because it is uniform and structured, it can be better thought out and adapted to the data and requirements.
The institution has already been implemented for three years, in high schools and technical schools. And it has been successfully implemented.
I would like to ask a crucial question to those who question and constantly raise various objections.
- In about a month's time, secondary school children will have a written assessment in Modern Greek. Some will write and be graded 15-16, some 19-20 and some 12-13. There will be those who will write 8-9, 6-7 or sometime lower.
- The issue is that for some children the assessment will be a 7 or 8 and will they and their teachers know it and will the school know it? Is that a problem? If there is a problem isn't it the level of knowledge itself and not the assessment that substantiates it?
- If there was no assessment would their knowledge and abilities be different?
Of course not all children have deficiencies. But where there is underachievement, the problem is knowing it? Or is it the deficiencies themselves?
And if they don't know it and we don't know it, how can there be an effort to correct it, an effort to improve?
Incomprehensible and incorrect is the claim that "excellent students were victimized"
It was heard that because of the quarterly written assessment "excellent students failed and were victimized". These days I have even seen this claim repeated in articles.
If this was the case, we should be alarmed and concerned. Is it happening?
In the first written assessment of the first quarter, in the first grade of high school, in 2019-20, we had among the students:
- 9% with a score of 17-20 in Modern Greek,
- 18% with a score of 17-20 in Mathematics (Orientation),
- 17% with a score of 17-20 in Physics
And so on.
So many were those who scored the highest marks. There were A's and they were
As there were on the 2020-21 second quarter written assessments in both A's and B's, and last year in 2021-22 in all three grades.
In the last, last year's written assessments of the second quarter among the students of the first grade there were:
- 20 % with a score of 17-20 in Modern Greek,
- 10 % with a score of 17-20 in Mathematics (Orientation),
- 18 % with a score of 17-20 in Physics (Orientation)
- 15 % with a score of 17-20 in History.
While in upper secondary school:
- 18 % with a score of 17-20 in Modern Greek,
- 34 % with a score of 17-20 in Mathematics (Orientation),
- 24 % with a score of 17-20 in Physics (Orientation)
- 18 % with a score of 17-20 in History.
Similarly in the third grade:
- 19 % with a score of 17-20 in Modern Greek,
- 33 % with a score of 17-20 in Mathematics (Orientation),
- 31 % with a score of 17-20 in Physics (Orientation)
- 15 % with a score of 17-20 in History.
In the quarterly assessment 45 % of the students had a score of 14-20/20 in Modern Greek. In Guidance Mathematics the corresponding figure was 49%.
Performance and ratios can vary from one year to the next and from one assessment to the next. The fact remains that students with high achievement and excellence emerge. In general, 15-30% were assessed last year with scores of 17-20/20. How can anyone claim that excellence was "victimized" or "failed"?
There were, well, excellence, just as there were others who scored very well, say 15 to 17 and so on. Where does this follow from?
It is a given that both excellence and evaluation always have a relativity. While a student's results can also change over time due to various factors.
Through the assessment process, a distribution of performance emerges that, as is the case in such cases, was more or less normal. If it was not, and wherever it may appear not to be so, then a discussion should take place.
But, the bottom line is that the claim that "excellence was victimized" is not borne out. There were A's.
To understand that the quarter assessments do not add in difficulty, we could compare the results with the other assessments for which we have similar data, those of the National Examinations. They are examinations of a different nature, but even there some people emerge as excellent. Over time we can see, and going back ten years, that in the Pancyprian Examinations we had a much lower percentage of excellent scores. With scores between 18 and 20 we had among the students in the Pancyprias:
- In 2012 0.25% in Modern Greek and 0.53% in Mathematics
- In 2016 0.72% in Modern Greek and 4.4% in Mathematics
- In 2022 1.17% in Modern Greek and 5,93% in Maths
There is no reason for either anxiety or excessive pressure
We still hear talk of anxiety and pressure in children. Certainly they should make an effort, because as we all know "good things come with hard work", but in no way does one help or want stress and pressure. Pupils who attend and follow lessons during term time have little reason to treat the written assessment at the end as a 'big issue', as it will record their performance and has a weight of only 20% of the whole year. It is likely that some students will feel they need additional preparation for this assessment, but then they have the time to do it. Without any particular stress.
But why does this written assessment create additional stress?
Without the common quarterly written assessment, we would still have written assessments by their teachers, separately for each school, for each department, as we have always had. And those evaluations led to the same result, part of their overall evaluation. What changes?"
Without the written quarterly assessment, was there still no talk of "too many tests"? Wouldn't those exams that determined their performance to some extent, if not handled properly, create anxiety again?
What should or shouldn't be done with the remaining written assignments during the quarter, given that we now have the quarter written assessment, is another issue that can be discussed in order for everyone to adjust appropriately. And if, by any chance, in some cases, there may be misuse and a large number of such exercises - which are not needed since there is a general four-month examination - and contrary to instructions given by the Directorate of the Ministry, that is what needs to be corrected. But one cannot blame the single written four-month assessment. I am sure that this is for the few and not the many, for I am sure that most of our teachers have adapted and are adapting, since they know the realities of teaching better than anyone else. More generally, however, this issue needs to be addressed separately.
Conducting assessments - degree of difficulty
Are the quarterly written assessments more difficult or less well adapted? We occasionally hear comments on this issue as well. These exams are prepared by the very teachers who teach them. They are analogous to what they would test on written exercises in the classroom. Subject writers are select and experienced teachers who know both the subject matter and the practice of classroom teaching well. They are the teachers we have and are admittedly of a very satisfactory standard. In any case, they are the teachers who anyway - even without quarterly evaluations - have the competence, and the specialized knowledge, to educate children. Therefore, comments made in protest of their work cannot be accepted.
Both teachers and parents at home, as well as the wider environment - including those who make public statements - should help children get used to an assessment process. If we want to live in a society where meritocracy is promoted, accountability is promoted, excellence is pursued and levelling and acrisis is avoided
It is not possible that when we in society want meritocracy we can, for example, demand examinations for public sector recruitment and at the same time avoid evaluation in schools. Should the school set the opposite example?
A political statement must be made here:
We also want the public school to promote effort and the pursuit of improvement. We also want public schools to promote and highlight excellence. And not just private education, where from the beginning there are rigorous competitive entrance exams and private schools are known to welcome a large proportion of the best performing students. I do not want to comment on or judge private education which performs its own role and is destined to exist. But if there can be procedures there that promote excellence, why don't we want something similar in public schools?
Those who oppose evaluation in public education should realize that it is like condemning public schools to a subordinate role.
The issue of "subject matter" and the pedagogical approach to proficiency indicators
I also want to address the recurring debates about what is taught and to what extent and what is examined in assessments. The so-called "subject matter."
I counter, for now, that we should no longer be talking about "amount of subject matter", since the curricula we operate are built in a way that targets "indicators of proficiency" rather than "mastery" of a specific amount of subject matter. I realize that this qualitative change in approach has not yet become common property. But we should keep trying because it is a change in the right direction. It also responds to the modern and tomorrow's world, where we need to move away from the logic of "rote learning" and cultivate cognitive skills, complex and critical thinking.
For the sake of discussion, however, let us stick to the basis of the terms that continue to be used, because they seem to have been long entrenched. The material to be taught, and therefore assessed, is prescribed by the syllabuses. It was not defined this year or last year or two years ago.
The management of this material, its distribution in the time available, and so on, is something of a technical matter. A pedagogical technical matter that should not be up for discussion and there is no point in considering it to be up for negotiation.
Each school year may show some marginal fluctuations, by a few days, in the time available. But in general, with the exception of the particular upheaval of the pandemic, there are no such variations that we need to discuss and judge the "curriculum" out of hand. It cannot be a matter for discussion every year, on which either students' organizations or organized parents or even teachers' unions will have an opinion and try to influence. It is a subject that should be handled professionally and responsibly by those who presumably have the best knowledge.
When, for example, I hear the OELMEK commenting and taking a critical stance on what should be taught and therefore assessed by examination, I ask myself:
- "but aren't teachers - hundreds of teachers - the ones who set the Analytical Programme?" and
- "are not teachers those who define, organize and give directions; the inspectors and other officials of the Ministry?"
They are teachers! Why should we do any other kind of handling by ignoring them?
To have consultations and for the Ministry to take notes from "combat teachers" at the headquarters is not only acceptable, but in the last two school years for the first time it has been done systematically.
But every year we cannot start the same discussions of "the syllabus is too much, we can't keep up."
The syllabuses are designed in such a way that they bring students to a level where they can attend university. Can this change? If so, it should be organised and allocated in the time available, without much room for debate.
Although here I will reiterate that we should not be talking quantitatively about 'subject matter', but rather getting to the point of looking at whether certain indicators of proficiency have been achieved and whether the relevant skills are present to a satisfactory degree.
That, possibly, the Analytical Programmes may need to be revised and adapted to new data, that is understandable. But it is something that needs to be done systematically, methodically and carefully, and not starting from "exam material".
For, again, assuming for the sake of argument that, as we often hear, "there is too much material to keep up with", then our problem is whether there will be an examination on the basis of this material or, more to the point, that we are in fact "not keeping up with" material that was deemed appropriate to be covered? What is the essential and larger issue to be discussed? I think it is not the quarterly assessments.
In any case, however, we know that adjustments are made each year and a significant amount of "material" is skipped and not included in the assessments."
IP
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