THE COMMON ENTRANCE HAS BECOME COMMON

Apr 15, 2016 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

The students writing the National Grade Six Assessment (NGSA) have had an additional month this year to prepare for the examinations. The putting back of the examinations by one month is the least controversial change that has been made to the examination by the new APNU+AFC government.
This change is, however, not likely to reduce the stress on the children. This year the children have additional stress because of the other changes that have been made, changes that are extremely controversial, but which have not yet sunk in.
These changes will add to the burdens on the children who are already under severe stress because of the importance of these examinations. The NGSA is the most stressful examination in the country.
The parents of the children writing these examinations understand the importance of these examinations to the future of their children. Guyana has universal primary education, and will soon attain universal secondary education. But the standards at all schools are not the same. Obtaining a good school can mean the difference between a good job and an ordinary one. It can, in other words, determine someone’s future.
Forget about that nonsense about government providing the good life for all. Governments do not provide the good life. People do. And the best way to the good life is to have a good education.
A good education requires a good school. There are, however, not many good schools in Guyana. The children who are writing these examinations in the next two weeks are competing for places in a few top schools in the country. Out of the 18,000 who will write the examinations, the top schools probably only provide about six hundred places.
Every parent wants their child to do well. Ninety-nine per cent of the parents want their children to do well. The children know this and they are under a lot of pressure to secure a good pass and get into one of the top schools in the country. This is the most important examination in the life of these kids. If they do well at the examinations, chances are more than certain that they will do well in life.
The pressure is enormous on these kids. They are working hard to make their parents proud. They will feel distraught when they do not get a top school. The children are under a great deal of stress because of the expectations resting on their shoulders.
I reiterate that the National Grade Six Assessment is the most stressful examinations in our education system. The students who will be writing the National Grade Six Assessment should start the examinations with +5 marks. Each student should be given a free 5 marks because they are writing these examinations under additional stress which is not of their own making.
The least thing that these children want at this stage is controversy as regards the examinations. The least thing that parents and the children want is to have changes to the examination – even if it is only the design of the question paper and answer sheet.
You do not introduce changes so sudden in examinations. It will confuse the children. It matters not whether ‘mock’ papers were sent to the schools. Changes have to be eased in. If children are being prepared in one way and then suddenly have to see another type of answer sheet it will confuse the weaker students. It will be harder for them to adapt to these new changes.
You do not want to do this, but unfortunately it has been done. The children need to be prepared over the next two weeks to become more familiar with the new format of the question paper and answer sheet.
Now a disaster is in the making! We are being told that the children will be asked to write their names on the answer sheet. This will compromise the integrity of the examinations. It should be disallowed.
The reason why students are asked to use a student number is to prevent fraud and to secure the integrity and fairness of the marking system.
If you have people writing their names on an answer sheet, it is easy for answer sheets to be switched or substituted or someone’s name inserted on another person’s answer sheet. Even if there are safeguards against this happening, the suspicion that will be created is not worth whatever the reason is for this controversial change.
Asking students to write their names will affect the integrity of the marking system, since it will now be possible for the person marking the paper to know the identity of the student who wrote the script. This will cast a cloud over the whole examination.
Guyana should be going forward. It looks like we are going backwards.

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