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Message board > How does the school system evaluate students in your country?
How does the school system evaluate students in your country?
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Mar0919
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How does the school system evaluate students in your country?
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Dear colleagues... while preparing a "special" exam I must hand in tomorrow, I started to wonder if this only happens in Mexico. In secondary level, we work in bimester periods, therefore, we have 5 exams per year. At the end of the 5th bimester, we add up all 5 bimester grades, and average the total to get one final grade. This also happens in high school and university, although they might have different periods instead of bimesters. If at the end, the student fails, he must take a "special" exam (it �s called "Examen Extraordinario") and with this, he gets like a second chance to pass the subject. If he fails again, there is still ANOTHER "last" chance". (Obviously, the idea is to PASS the student) I am TOTALLY against this system, because some of our lazy students, just goof around all year, and at the end, they know they will have a second (or third) chance to pass. Aggghhh! This irks me so much. But these are rules that the SEP (Board of Ed) establishes, and all schools must follow. Does this happen in any country other than Mexico? I went to school in the United States, and I don �t remember (ok, ok........ yes, it was a loooooooooooooong time ago!) anything like this in the school rules. |
7 Jul 2011
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libertybelle
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I have a question - is this an exam grade or a final grade for the whole year �s work?
I ask because I have some great students who are really bad at taking exams. They are so nervous, they do badly on exams but really well during the year.
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7 Jul 2011
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karagozian
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I don �t think there is such a thing as an "ideal system" that does really work and is fair to everyone. All have positive sides and less positive sides I think. |
7 Jul 2011
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donapeter
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The most important exam in Romania is the Bacalaureat. The students who graduate the 12th grade must pass this exam in order to continue their education. The exam takes place in other location/institution than the one where they have studied and they are supervised by other teachers. This is a national exam and the papers are graded by a group of teachers, but not the ones from their school. There are 2 teachers to grade every single paper. There are 3 subjects (I had 5 - some many years ago) depending on their profile. The exam is quite strict and ...the promovability is ......as it is. (The students from technical schools often fail this exam - promovability 20%) |
7 Jul 2011
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ueslteacher
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Hello, Mar :) In secondary level (5th-8th grades) our school year is divided into two semesters/terms. The students get a mark in English for each semester/term which define the final mark for the academic year. Now each semester is evaluated according to the 6 final marks ss get in each topic (those are defined by marks ss get during the lessons and the "topic" test) and 4 final semester tests in speaking, reading, writing and listening which assess the skills they �ve developed during the semester (I �m talking about a specialized school where ss have five English classes per week) . At the end of the semester we add up the 6 "topic" marks and 4 marks in skill tests and divide them by ten and get the semester mark. We have 12 point system. 1-3 (low), 4-6(satisfactory), 7-9 (good), 10-12 (excellent) so if the final mark the student gets is 5.3 I put 5 in the register, but if it �s say 5.6 then he/she gets 6 as a semester mark. The same goes for the mark for the academic year. The semester mark can be "corrected" (we even have a separate column for it in the register) The student and his/her parents fill in an application form and then the student can take an exam with the administration (principal and all his deputy principals) of the school present, but that would be the worst case scenario for the student, so for as long as I�ve worked in this school I haven�t seen a semester mark "corrected" not even once:) BTW I forgot to mention I work at a public school. Sophia P.S. Veeeeery rarely the student would have to repeat the year if he failed in most of the subjects (or he/she would be sent to a different school:)) You see, here they say you�re a bad teacher if your students fail, so some teachers would even help their students cheat on the test  I know this statement will make some of my colleagues angry. I�m not saying all teachers are like that. |
7 Jul 2011
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serene
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Hi Mar, in my country, too, there is a general tendency for all students to be promoted to the next grade. In the Greek senior high school the school year is divided in two semesters. At the end of each semester the students get an overall mark for their (oral and written) performance in each subject. At the end of the year the average of these two marks is added to the mark they get at the final written exam in each subject. The average of the two is their final mark in each subject. A student is promoted if the average mark of all subjects is at least 9.5 (out of 20). This means that a student is promoted even if he has a failing mark (below 9.5) in quite a few subjects. edit: If his average mark (of all subjects) is below 9.5 he is allowed to sit an exam (in the subjects he failed) again in September, that is at the beginning of the new school year.
I believe this tendency is part of a social policy (on behalf of the state) to keep our teenagers busy since students who fail normally drop out of school, and we do not want high youth unemployment rates nor scores of teenagers hanging around and causing mischief, do we? ;)
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7 Jul 2011
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Mar0919
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Hello everybody! Thank you so much for your responses, they are very, very interesting! Liberty, this grade which I mention is for the whole year �s work. Yes, I agree with you that there are students that have "exam-phobia" and do very poorly although they are bright students. I have a few of those cases, where of course I have to have this in mind when grading. What bothers me is those students who never work, have very bad conduct, whose parents you got tired of calling but never bothered to go, who never do homework, etc, etc,.... and they still get this "second chance" to pass... Karagozian, I totally agree there is no ideal system, I just vented out of pure frustration!  Thanks again for all your responses! Have a great day! Hugs, Mar |
7 Jul 2011
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Zora
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Hi Mar,
It sounds like the Mexican education model is similar to the Spanish one. The kids here have sooo many "repescas" or make up exams of exams, that I often wonder how they can even be failing at times.
And yes, it drives me crazy too. When I was growing up; you got one chance and that was it. You passed an exam or you failed it. You weren �t given one (or two) more chances to pass that test.
We, as a society, are making kids lazy and irresponsible. They expect everything to be handed to them on a plate and unfortunately, "real life" isn �t that way...
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7 Jul 2011
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aliciapc
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You are absolutely right, Linda, it �s not right for them to have so many chances, of course they learn to be lazy ... or to think, "never mind, I always have another chance" ...
Here it �s all about statistics, what matters to the government is for sts to pass their basic studies (up to when they are 14 at least) so as to say, "we �ve improved education" but whether they learn or not, they don �t care ... |
7 Jul 2011
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Mar0919
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Zora!  I couldn �t have said it better. Sadly... we �re creating (I �m sorry if I �m too harsh) "useless" students. I mean... Some students have had the nerve to say... "you can �t fail me, it �s not "allowed"... so they go from one grade to another, graduate from high school, or whatever, with no real education, no preparation. Just a snotty attitude, and when they go out to the real world, as you say... they find themselves very incompetent. Then...... �who was the bad guy? THE TEACHERS!!! Oh well..... this must not demotivate us to keep doing our work, and doing it right!  |
7 Jul 2011
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ueslteacher
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I guess the system makes them focus on the grade/mark as such but not as something that rewards the efforts put into. They don �t get it that the most important thing about learning is acquiring skills they can later apply in their adult life.
Sophia |
7 Jul 2011
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