Recently, there has been some controversy over the secondary school leaving examinations and the resulting pass levels. In this election year, the minister of education has seen fit to boast about the pass level of 98.5 percent achieved by the senior class. He notes that this is up from 91.1 percent in 2010. Further, he has found it necessary to defend the marks by claiming that they were not “doctored.”
The end result is what it is. It is not going to change. The facts of the matter seem to be that supplemental examinations for all students who failed the basic examination were given between the time of writing the initial final examination and the end of term. This was done to save the cost of teachers having to write additional exam papers during the summer, according to the education minister. In addition, he added, it allowed more students to walk across the stage. These are two very weak reasons!
However, it also eliminated the possibility that students failing the initial paper would have time to study the subject over the summer and to (presumably) be better prepared when the supplementary was written. Unless the same paper was given twice, there may have been insufficient time to a) write a new paper, b) mark the old paper, c) advise the students as to who had passed or failed, and d) arrange for the rewrites.
It would be interesting to know how many supplementary exam rewrites were awarded.
It is also illogical to believe that the situation at the Elmore Stoutt High School had materially changed over a one-year period. Classes do have a (sort of) rated intelligence level, which is fairly well known to the students, the teachers and the administration. But the class of 2011 was apparently rated no better than average and perhaps not quite that good.
The level of teaching ability can also change, but this generally occurs only if the teaching staff composition changes. This generally takes a period of years as teachers are replaced. And if the new teachers are drawn from the same personnel pool, there is really no reason to expect a radical change in teaching results.
So it is probably more logical to assume that the initial pass rate was, at best, similar to the 2010 pass rate, which, without supplemental results included, was probably in the order of 85 percent. Again, it would be interesting to know the real figures before judging whether the improvement was artificially generated.
Results from a single school system are basically useless if they are not viewed in relation to other schools that are being examined on the same course material and at the same time. This effectively compares the effectiveness of the education systems as well as the level of teaching ability of the teaching staffs. And from the standpoint of the end user, whether it be an employer or a college/university, it allows for a reasonable comparison of the students’ abilities.
Such comparative testing is currently available through the CXC examinations (O level and A level) and through the SAT (Scholastic Aptitude Test). In many Caribbean countries, one or both of these tests are universally used. This is not the case in the Virgin Islands, where CXC examinations are optional and where some students may be encouraged not to write at all.
But entry into a British University without the CXC (or a United States college without the SAT) is simply not possible. A confusion factor may be that the VI system sees the two final years of secondary school in the public system carried out at H. Lavity Stoutt Community College. The private schools such as Cedar International are kindergarten to grade 13, and entry to advanced learning takes place directly from the secondary school
In the prehistoric times when I was still in the education system in Quebec, Canada, the system worked in a slightly different manner to what is currently seen in the VI. And the difference applied to both the secondary school level and to university. A generation later, the system had changed again and the universities had been forced to adapt their admission standards accordingly.
In the mid-1950s in Quebec, English-speaking high school students wrote a common set of examinations known as the Matriculation Exams. Each student wrote (or, in the case of French, spoke) a minimum of ten subjects, with a core of five: two English, two French (one oral) and history. The writer also wrote four maths, physics, chemistry and biology, for a total of 12. The top five results of the seven options were counted to develop the graduating average.
The universities used the averages to determine whether a student would be accepted into first year of whatever faculty. The minimum acceptance level was 65 percent, but most of the students who entered university with marks as low as the minimum range failed out in first year. The overall failure rate in first-year engineering at McGill was 50 percent. And, in second year, it was not really much lower since there was intake of students from other jurisdiction secondary schools.
Changes in education system
My children were born and brought up in English-speaking Ontario. As education had “progressed,” the concept of matriculation exams had disappeared — apparently as “cruel and unusual punishment.” In their place, final exams were set at the individual schools, supposedly to some common standard set by the provincial Ministry of Education. Some schools consistently produced excessively high results only to see their graduates do extremely poorly in the first year of university.
Since university space was not limitless, the universities acted to protect themselves from artificially high results. Based on the experienced results of students from each high school in first year, the individual high schools were assigned a factor for use by the university in adjusting the reported high school leaving results. And the universities made no secret that the factor differed greatly between schools.
And, in the case of the VI, it is not solely the judgement of the students (or the ministry) that counts, but rather the ultimate judgement of both the universities and the employers. And the whole student class of 2011 may well be contaminated by the current situation. Certainly, if you, as an employer, were to employ one of the less capable students, you would not be favourably impressed!
Quebec exams
I have no memory of what the initial pass rate was on the Quebec matriculation exams. At a guess, it was probably around 85 percent. With the supplementals, written in August, it probably increased by two or three percent. I do, however, know exactly what the pass rate was in the senior year of chemical engineering at McGill. It was exactly 28 out of 35 students, or 80 percent. And it was obvious that this was exactly what the university intended and, further, that the marks had been adjusted “on the curve” to achieve this pass rate.
As an example, the last student in the class (who was a special case) graduated with a 50.2 percent average, and did not write any supplementals! Any analysis of those marks will indicate that this is a numeric impossibility.
VI results
The manner in which the examination results were handled and the way in which the supplemental examinations were administered had one easily predictable result. Those students who were successful on the initial examinations are now lumped in with the remainder who were not successful, but who achieved the same result as far as can be told.
And this takes much of the luster of success away from the better students.
And the students who literally “got something for little effort” are likely to believe that this will also happen in the future. Sometimes it does, but when it does not, the result is generally a horrible shock.
The minister of education claims that any irregularities were beyond his control. This is equivalent to maintaining that if it is good, it is to his credit, but if it is bad, it is someone else’s fault. This is typical of the government.
In any case, the minister is ultimately responsible for what goes on at all levels under the control of his ministry. He cannot simply take credit for what is good and slough off those things that are distasteful. He has the ultimate control and responsibility.
Statistics
The following data is taken from the June 6, 2011 issue of The New Yorker. The comments are mine.
• In 2010, 35,000 students applied for admission to Harvard University. Six percent (2,100) were accepted.
• Public colleges in the US enroll almost 15 million students. Private colleges (such as Harvard) enroll only 1.15 million.
• Tuition in private colleges (such as Harvard or Yale) may cost as much as $50,000 per year, including room and board, while public colleges are possibly as low as $7,500 per year.
Today, in Canada and the US, the required education level for jobs is such that a bachelor’s degree may not be enough. A master’s may be a basic requirement.
So long as the VI cannot provide itself with enough “homegrown” technical expertise, it stands very little chance in a world that is becoming steadily more dependent on technology. And the complacency generated by the belief in such statements as “great and getting better” with reference to the local education system is not going to improve the product.