(2/2)
http://www.chowk.com/show_article.cgi?aid=00004107&channel=university%20ave&order=0&start=10&end=17&page=2&chapter=1
But how does AKU-EB propose to achieve its three-fold objectives? The AKU-EB presentation attempts to answer this question in some detail. On the question of improving the quality of education in Pakistani schools, AKU-EB officials start with stating that AKU-EB would begin with making teachers the “managers of learning”. Several statements are made in support of the above—some fairly obvious, even non-trivial, and others not-so-obvious. For example, the presentation claims that AKU-EB would empower the teachers by putting the relevant syllabus in the hands of every teacher, recommend multiple texts and provide teachers with reprographic capabilities, develop subject materials by subject-specialists and distribute them “free of cost”
to every registered student, conduct examinations that favor open-ended answers rather than “right” answers, and legitimize newspaper, TV and internet as tools of knowledge and learning etc.
The benefits of some of the above-mentioned approaches are obvious as they constitute well-established good pedagogical practice elsewhere (e.g.
assessing students based on their understanding of the subject rather than looking for a “right” answer, allowing the use of multiple texts and learning tools etc.) and AKU-EB would add value if it adopts these. Others are not so obvious, especially vis-à-vis the additional value that AKU-EB plans to bring to the table. Do other examination boards or systems not encourage teachers to become managers of learning? Do they not put syllabus in the hands of the teachers or ensure that subject materials are accessible to all registered students? Would AKU-EB undertake the tremendous responsibility of teacher training without which the teachers would not even be able to mark the “open-ended” questions set by the board, what to talk of teaching the students to answer them in the first place. If AKU-EB plans to enter the realm of teacher training as well, how is that part of AKU-EB’s mission going to be funded?
On the question of developing expertise in educational assessment, AKU-EB aims to develop educational “standards” in terms of typical performance expectations at each grade level. Here AKU-EB hints at using a clever trick to smoothen the transition of this system. Each affiliated school would be required to submit a longitudinal history of their SSC grades to AKU-EB.
AKU-EB would work out the proportion of A1, A, B and C grades each affiliated school would get if it did not change its performance standards.
The AKU-EB would then continue to award that proportion of grades to each affiliated school. Examiners would then describe typical performance standards at each grade after which the grade proportions can vary within schools based on improvement in their performance on the set standards.
This is a clever trick that would make it easier for schools and their students to shift from one examination board (e.g. Federal Board) to AKU-EB without having to go through a worsening or artificial improvement in test scores.
However, the devil is in the details and how is this proposal actually implemented remains to be seen. The educational community and the participating schools should insist on detailed documentation of the underlying formulas that would be used to implement this trick—the details of the proposal, as it stands right now, are rather sketchy. Another potential issue of concern for parents and students is the acceptance of AKU-EB within the wider tertiary academic community. The suffering of students graduating from Federal Board and not getting admissions in provincially chartered universities (e.g. University of Karachi) that discriminate in the favor of local examination boards is all too common.
The document also introduces certain other terms and methodologies whose details are so sketchy and ideas so vague that any meaningful analysis of the idea itself or its practical impact on the outcomes of educational assessment exercise cannot be undertaken at this stage. For example, AKU-EB would classify each cognitive subject as knowledge, understanding, or application of skill or idea and would assess student achievement with reference to each of these constructs. The idea sounds like a pedagogical nirvana but would merely classifying everything that students learn as knowledge, understanding, or application actually change something about what they actually learn? Unless, of course, AKU-EB also designs the curriculum and the entire learning experience in a manner that emphasizes a balance between knowledge, understanding, and application, a mere reclassification of already existing curriculum or even adopting new test formats (without changes in curriculum and teaching) would make little difference to the actual learning experience of students.
Another proposal put forth in the document is that of involving subject teachers of affiliated schools to develop teaching and learning support materials that would be collated centrally and distributed to all schools.
Teachers would also be involved in providing detailed feedback to AKU-EB on several issues to ensure improvement of the latter’s assessment methodologies. This is really a beaten horse. The problems of the teaching community, of which ability and motivation are only the tip of the iceberg, run deep. Who doesn’t believe that teachers and teachers alone are key to quality of education in any system, yet the situation on the ground represents a complete lack of motivation and initiative on the part of teachers. In all likelihood, as in the past, the teachers’ community would not appreciate and welcome this additional “burden” and the proposal would end up gathering dust on somebody’s table.
The third and final objective of AKU-EB relates to the development of a fair and trustworthy assessment process leveraging the use of information technology. It is here that the situation gets a little too tricky. AKU-EB is proposing to use Computer Assisted Marking (CAM) to assess “open-end”
“hand written” questions! Presumably, each examiner sees the candidate’s answer to one question in his/her own handwriting and assigns marks to it.
The description here gets too vague and the questions that arise in one’s mind, too many. Would AKU-EB provide laptops to all teachers assigned for marking the exams. In a fully developed and implemented system, hundreds of thousands of students appear for an SSC or HSSC exam and hundreds if not thousands of teachers are called upon to grade their exams. Would students be required to type in their answers? How would the logistical nightmare of taking every student’s answer sheet apart—one question at a time—and putting it into several different computers be accomplished? How would such a complex process be made error-proof? While AKU-EB documents makes it appear as if computer-assisted marking would be a panacea of all errors and biases, it is not quite clear how that would be the case.
This gives rise to an even more fundamental question. Why should such an automated system be put into place in an under-developed country like Pakistan when such systems for assessing “open-ended” questions are not even used in some of the most advanced countries of the world—not even in America! Is this another one of the examples of technology oversell or overkill? One wonders if this is a precursor to another sinister procurement contract designed to make Pakistan a junkyard of a foreign firm’s outdated computer technology that would only waste more money and deliver little additional value? One of the benefits claimed by AKU-EB, apart from hypothesized decrease in error rates, for installing this computer assisted marking technology is the ability of AKU-EB to provide feedback to each school on its strengths and weaknesses of each school’s performance, question by question. If this means providing simple statistics (mean, median, standard deviation etc.) on a particular school’s position vis-à-vis all the schools, that should be do-able without the use of such elaborate system of computer assisted marking. However, if this means feedback of more qualitative nature than mere statistics, the question arises as to why should AKU-EB do this in the first place. Aren’t all good competitive schools do that kind of self-assessment on an on-going basis for their students anyway?
None of the analysis done so far suggests any definitive answers or value judgments. What I have tried to do is to truthfully relate what AKU-EB claims to be planning to do as well as raise questions and identify weaknesses in AKU-EB’s own logic of how they intend to achieve that. Any observer can use the discussion so far and reach his or her own objective conclusion about whether AKU-EB seems like a good idea or not. I’ll leave it up to a competent authority within AKU-EB to answer these questions and objections, one by one, in a convincing manner and for the educationists, policymakers, political leaders—and above all, the parents and students themselves—to assess the validity of these answers.
Hmmm thats not good for sure then if they are teaching anti-Islamic stuff!
) that will really make sure that the syllabus being adhered to is a good one.
Ready for round 2..