Directions

Alternative Futures For School Leaving Awards*
Warwick Elley
As many people know, examinations in the South Pacific, and indeed in
many other parts of the world, are in a state of flux. Some would say they
are in a state of chaos. After years of pressure from New Zealand teachers,
the New Zealand University Entrance Examination, which is used by most
South Pacific countries, is being abolished after this year, and the Minister
of Education in New Zealand, Mr. Marshall, is marshalling his resources
to phase out the New Zealand School Certificate as soon as he can. Last
month the New Zealand School Certificate Examination Board in
Wellington proposed its self-destruction and recommended that School
Certificate be replaced with an internally assessed Fifth Form Certificate
without grades, without pass/fail distinctions, and without inter-subject
comparability. It is clearly intended to be quite a different sort of award. I
think this change will probably occur in the near future, and even if it takes
five years, the New Zealand Government has already announced that the
South Pacific School Certificate Special Option papers are to cease from
1988. So the writing is on the wall and the die is cast. Very soon, I believe,
the South Pacific examination authorities will be on their own and many
people are pleased about this prospect.
Thirteen years ago, at an international seminar on educational priorities
held here at USP, I was invited to speak on the topic "Examinations at the
Crossroads", along with your Secretary Gurmit Singh. We talked about
the possible abolition of examinations — we thought it was in the air —
and I had collected a number of comments that South Pacific educators
were making then about the evils of examinations, especially New Zealand
ones. Amongst the comments I collected from various files and minutes
and reports were:
Examinations are irrelevant;
they're restricting;
they're discouraging and deadening;
they're dampening;
they're deplorable;
they're invalid;
* Based on an address to the Suva Institute for Education Research, September,
1985.
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they're distorting;
they're an obstacle to progress;
they're cruel.
One seminar speaker described external examinations as 'fire
extinguishers' — putting out fires lit by teachers in the children's minds.
Now, if even half of these criticisms of examinations have any truth in
them, then it is incredible that we have clung to them for so long. After all,
Canada abolished them in the early 70s; most Australian states did
likewise, about the same time, and the abolition movement still seems to be
spreading there. New Zealand has experimented with a variety of
procedures for internal assessment, for school-based assessment by
teachers, but a very conservative Minister of Education resisted the
campaign to abolish examinations for an incredible nine years.
However, as in all contentious issues, there is another side to the story. The
debate over examinations has been fought out in a variety of ways for
several generations, but I believe it is really a debate between those who
wish to centralise educational decision-making and those who would
rather decentralise. The centralists say we must have common standards,
we must have justice for all, we must have international credibility. An
examination is impartial, it is equally fair for all students, it is sat under
identical conditions for all and it ensures that certain topics are studied and
mastered. When there is selection for scarce places, it is a fair and just
system, regardless of race, sex, religion or economic circumstances, and it
is acceptable to employers and to tertiary institutions. That, briefly put, I
think is the main case for centralising examinations for school-leaving
awards.
The decentralisation case, by contrast, is based on the view that
assessments are best made at the local level, by the teachers who know the
students best; the ones who work with them day in and day out throughout
the year. If I teach a group of academically-inclined youngsters in a large
city school, then I should be able to give them a course that is suited to their
needs and aspirations, and assess them on what we have studied. If you
teach a rural group with different needs, and ability levels, then you should
adapt the curriculum to suit them, and assess them according to that
course. The distant anonymous examiner can make no allowances for
these differences. Everyone is expected to cover the same ground, at more
or less the same pace, or the examination will not be valid. Furthermore, it
is argued, that big three-hour, one-shot examination, that all-your-eggs-in
one-basket assessment is often an unfair and panicky experience, resulting
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in a much blunter instrument than say a series of tests, essays and
assignments, field reports, oral presentations or whatever else is part and
parcel of a good course. I can show you evidence that two assessments
made on two separate days are more reliable than one, and that three are
more reliable than two, and so on.
So, following this line of argument, the New Zealand examination
authorities have followed the Canadians and the Australians and they have
opted for internal assessment for school-leaving awards at Form 5 and
Form 6 levels. However, before you say, why not follow their example, and
climb aboard the abolition bandwagon, I think we have to note some
differences between these metropolitan countries and the South Pacific.
Remember that selection is not normally a problem in these metropolitan
countries; all or nearly all children can find places at the next level of
education. This reduces greatly the pressure on teachers to favour certain
students. Remember too that education has been free and compulsory in
most of these places for generations, whereas most Pacific Islanders still
have to make sacrifices and to pay for the privilege. This inevitably puts
pressures on teachers who make internal assessments. Remember too that
many teachers in Australia and New Zealand have received more training
and qualifications, and that most have had several years of experience of
internal assessment under their present accrediting system for University
Entrance. Moreover, there are racial and kinship pressures to consider;
pressures for favouritism; and they are probably less in evidence in
metropolitan countries than they are in the South Pacific.
So, much as I like the ideals of internal assessment, 1 suspect that in the
Pacific Islands we are not ready for it in 1986. The pendulum is not poised
to swing that far yet. I think it is worth remembering too that at the one
point in the system where there is some selection in metropolitan countries
(i.e. at entrance to university), there is usually an examination. New
Zealand examiners look as though they are going to retain their Form 7
bursary examination; in Australia, most of the States have kept one
examination that counts for 50% at Grade 12 level, the last year of high
school, and in Canada, (I was in Canada looking at their system last year),
they have had internal assessment for more than a decade but three
provinces (British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario) have recently
reintroduced an examination at Grade 12 level (i.e. at the point of entrance
to university) — an examination that counts for 50%. So there is still an
examination at the point where there is a need for a just and reliable
selection mechanism.
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As New Zealand is phasing out of the South Pacific examination scene,
this is the time for reconsideration. It seems to me that it is time now to give
the pendulum a definite push towards the decentralisation end of
continuum. After all, there has been a huge distance between the
examiners and the pupils for our School Certificate and University
Entrance. It is a long way from distant Wellington to Suva, to Tarawa, to
Vila, to Apia and to Nuku'alofa. Most of us would agree on the weakness
of a centralised New Zealand external examination that has standardised
all Pacific syllabuses in the one inflexible mould. We have a golden
opportunity to do some decentralising, to develop more locally relevant
prescriptions and to give local examiners more freedom and more
responsibility.
What do the Ministers of Education around the region feel about this
opportunity? I have visited seven countries in the region in the past six
weeks and discussed the issue with senior officials in Ministries of
Education and a number of teachers and principals. Some leaders regard
the challenge with smiling confidence and joyous optimism. Regrettably,
these positive emotions do not always seem to be shared by their
subordinates, in particular by classroom teachers. They worry about
examination policies, the standards of examinations and international
credibility; they worry about nepotism in high places, the scaling
procedures that are going to be used and about mistakes in reporting.
These anxieties will be lessened, I believe, with the training and back-up
support that are being offered by the South Pacific Board for Educational
Assessment. The Board's reputation in the islands I have visited is high,
and is improving now that the Ministries of Education can see what the
Board can do. Indeed, the requests for their services over the next year or
two are increasing rapidly.
So, assuming that New Zealand is finally withdrawing its examinations,
and assuming that full internal assessment is not realistic at the moment,
what are the options for the nine countries that have used these
examinations for the past three decades? Before I spell out a few possible
scenarios and get your opinions, I should raise one or two more basic
principles for your consideration. Just what are the desirable criteria, the
desirable qualities of examinations for school-leaving awards? What do we
have to aim at? What criteria should we keep in mind?
First, it seems to me that local examinations should reflect the curricula of
country and the cultural aspirations, as far as possible. Examinations for
those who are staying in the islands should reflect local culture, local
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language, local history, local geography — not to the exclusion of the rest
of the world, but the emphasis should become less Eurocentric. Of course,
this is more important in some subjects and at some levels than others.
There is no way you can adapt Archimedes' principle to fit Fijian
circumstances, and as far as I know there is no Samoan version of
Pythagoras. The case for local input is greater in arts than in science.
Furthermore, I believe it is more important to have local content at Form 5
level than at Form 6 level. In most countries in the region Form 6 students,
the academically motivated minority, have their sights set on further
studies, usually overseas, so they prefer the kind of course that will best
help them to prepare for university, whether in Suva, New Zealand,
Australia, PNG or wherever they intend to study.
Another important criterion to keep in mind is that the examinations have
to be competently constructed, marked, scaled and reported. The
resources available to achieve this in most of the islands outside Fiji are still
rather limited. Many of the students who took ED 354 under Subhas
Chandra, Gurmit Singh, myself and others, are in key places, but many
more have moved to higher posts, to responsible positions outside the
education sector. In this context the South Pacific Board for Educational
Assessment is helping with the training of local markers, the analysis of
results and so on. But the Board has an establishment of only two
professional officers, so they cannot be in all places at once. There is clearly
a problem in this respect. However, if this important criterion, quality, can
be demonstrated to be present, then I think the other principle,
international credibility, is more likely to be attained. The University
Entrance credential from New Zealand is accepted in Fiji, Australia, UK,
indeed almost anywhere. Who is going to accept a UE qualification from
Tonga or Tuvalu or Vanuatu? USP, as you know, has been accepting
school graduates from Solomons, Kiribati and Vanuatu without NZUE.
The outcome of this policy has not always been satisfactory, judging by
figures I have seen. Students are arriving here without adequate
preparation for certain courses. Furthermore, I have been told
discouraging stories about Pacific Islanders who go to Australia and fail in
large numbers, and some who go to New Zealand and do the same. I think
metropolitan countries generally are wary of accepting underqualified
applicants, for reasons of their own, as well as for the students' self-esteem.
So this international portability criterion cannot be ignored.
Bearing these criteria in mind, what would be a sensible policy for the
future? I would like to outline three main models for the 1990s plus a few
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minor variations on each, and seek your reactions.
Before I do so, it would be instructive to study Model I showing the present
system of external examinations so you can see where we are moving from.
At the moment each country in the region sets its own examinations below
the School Certificate level. Sometimes it is at Lower Form 5; sometimes at
Form 4 and sometimes at Form 3, Solomon Islands presents an exception,
as it sets its own national examination at Form 5 level.
MODEL 1
( W.Samoa J ( Tonga J ( F i j i J { Cook I s . j ( Solomon I s . J ( K i r i b a t i J
: F5 I J F6 I ! F5 | F 6 ] I F4 I ] F6 ] i LF5 ] I F6 | I P5 ! | F6 I I F5 I I F6 I
^ ~ ~ ^ 3 SPBEA/NZ y ^ ^ " ^
Figure 1
At present, the South Pacific Board for Educational Assessment
(SPBEA), is giving support to examiners in most of these countries in
moderating their standards and improving the quality of their
examinations. This support is indicated by arrows in the diagram.
Meanwhile, there is a regional Form 5 School Certificate and a regional
Form 6 University Entrance and those are set from New Zealand. (See the
bottom of Figure 1).
Let us now turn to the options for the future. These are still figments of our
imagination but I think they should help the purpose of the discussion. It
looks to me, with the announcement of the withdrawal of Form 5 and
Form 6 examinations from New Zealand, that we are drifting towards a
policy of "whole-hearted nationalism" for examinations at this level —
Form 5 and Form 6. I am referring to this as Model 1. Thus, Western
Samoa is planning to set both Form 5 and Form 6 examinations to replace
SC and UE; Tonga is proposing to do the same. Fiji is planning to have a
Form 4 examination. Fiji Junior will continue, and they have announced
their intention to develop their own Form 6 examination. The Cook
Islands is thinking of keeping its lower fifth form examination and
developing a Form 6 examination, and so on. It appears as though we are
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producing a large series of independent examinations with very limited
resources, and the South Pacific Board for Educational Assessment is
expected to help service each one. With a staff of two it will be very hard for
them to do this. Assistance could be provided by New Zealand in some
cases, but the policy switch would be too abrupt in my view to meet the
criteria spelled out above. However, unless a strong initiative is taken in
the near future, I believe that this model will emerge as the examination
system of the future. It has the obvious advantage that it would encourage
the development of nationally relevant curricula and enable each country
to set standards that are within the reach of a large proportion of school
leavers. These are desirable criteria.
However, Model 1 suffers from several real disadvantages. It would put an
enormous strain on the trained manpower resources of most countries,
especially at Form 6 level, as well as on SPBEA staff who would be
expected to be in 14 places at the same time, while still supervising
attachments at home. It would result in a huge range of new examinations
set each year, with slightly different emphases, different standards and
different levels of reliability, and most of them would be unlikely to attract
international recognition at the level where most countries want it — Form
6.
MODEL 2(a
MODEL 2(b)
Exams:
Form 5
Form 6
Form 5
Form 6
V
\\
/
/
SPBEA J
( •
• )
. .
/ i
\\
Contracts: USP FIJI
NZ
etc
Figure 2
Model 2 is at the opposite extreme, what we could call "whole-hearted
regionalism". Under this model we would replace the New Zealand Form 5
and Form 6 examinations with examinations prepared regionally by a unit
— perhaps the South Pacific Board for Educational Assessment or USP.
There would be one regional examination for Form 5 and one regional
examination for Form 6, each including the whole range of subjects.
Perhaps the South Pacific Board for Educational Assessment could
become the examining authority. It is independent, it has expertise and
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experience in the region, but it does not have the staff to prepare separate
examinations in English, Mathematics, History, Chemistry, Physics
and so on. If the Board were to take on this responsibility it would need to
be transformed into an examining authority, and would probably contract
out to others the task of setting the examinations in those subjects for
which it had no suitable people on the staff. Thus, examiners might be
drawn from USP, Fiji schools or Ministry, or from other parts of the
region, including New Zealand or Australia.
The main advantage of a whole-hearted regional model are that it would
encourage the development of regional curricula and examinations at
Form 5 and Form 6 level, it would ensure a common standard at each level
which would probably gain international acceptance where required, and
it would put less strain on the resources of each country. However, it now
seems too late for such a model to gain acceptance. It might have worked
five years ago, but it is not viable today. Several countries have made a
public commitment to set national examinations, at least at Form 5 level,
examination units are being established to undertake this task. Solomon
Islands already has such an examination based on local syllabi; Tonga and
Samoa have planned national examinations for Form 5, and Fiji has
announced its intention to do without one. It seems that Model 2 is
unlikely then to gain widespread support at present, whether controlled by
SPBEA or USP.
MODEL 3 t a )
Figure 3
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MODEL 3 (b)
Figure 4
( W. Samoa J (
j f Cooks j f Solomons J ( Kiribati J
Figure 5
A third option, is what I refer to as partial regionalism. This model calls for
national examinations at Form 5 level (or below), supported by the Board,
and regional examinations at Form 6 level, under the auspices of a central
organisation, such as the SPBEA (model 3a). Other possible candidates
for such a central examining unit are USP (Model 3b) or a Fiji
Examinations Board (Model 3c).
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From my discussions with many Pacific Islands' educators, I found
considerable support for Model 3(a). The main advantages for such a
model seems to be:
1. The national examination at Form 5 (or below in some cases) could
still reflect local curricula, and provide a realistic goal for large
numbers of students.
2. SPBEA could still train examiners and moderate standards for the
Form 5 examinations.
3. International recognition is not as important at Form 5 as it is at Form
6.
4. The regional examination at Form 6 represents a more efficient use of
scarce manpower resources in the region.
5. Most countries are planning Form 6 courses similar to those offered
now for New Zealand University Entrance. There may be some
changes in the prescriptions for History, Geography, Biology, and a
few other subjects, but these are unlikely to vary much from country to
country, as most are aiming to prepare students for further education.
What variations there are can probably be accommodated by a system
of optional questions in the examinations.
6. The standard of the Form 6 examinations would be the same from one
country to another.
7. The Board is an independent, autonomous body without vested
interests in any kind of programme, or any particular institution.
Therefore, its examinations are more likely to gain international
respect than are those of small island nations.
8. The costs and workloads should be less than-the provisions of Model
1.
9. The coverage of important prerequisites for university courses is more
likely to be assured under the model than under Model 1. This matter
is currently of much concern in USP Foundation Science and
Mathematics courses, as a result of high failure rates amongst some
island groups.
10. A regional body like the Board is more likely to attract funding from
aid agencies for a co-operative endeavour than are each of the
individual countries working separately.
The main disadvantages of this model is that the Fiji Government has
announced its intention to work towards a national Fiji Form 6 Leaving
Examination by 1988. If this plan is pursued, then the unit cost per
student for the Board to run examinations for the remaining countries in
the region would be considerably greater than if Fiji participated.
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The two main options which have had some minority support are 3(b) and
3(c), in which the central authorities for the regional examinations at Form
6 are USP and Fiji respectively.
If USP were invited by enough countries of the region to develop Form 6-
examinations, I am assured by senior USP officials that they wold respond
appropriately, but they would not wish to exercise an initiative in the
matter. Some educators, outside Fiji, thought that the USP Preliminary
Examinations, now offered through its Extension Studies Programme,
might be adapted to suit the needs of member countries, and serve the
function now performed by the New Zealand University Entrance
Examinations Board. After following up the implications of this option, I
believe that it is less viable that Model 3(a).
The main advantages are similar to those of Model 3(a). In addition, it
must be said that USP has ready access to specialist staff in the major
subjects. There are, however, several serious disadvantages.
1. There are still many people in the region, inside and outside USP, who
contend that the University should avoid any role in setting
examinations at Form 6 level. Some object as a matter of principle, in
case of restricting influences on curricula; others on the ground that
university lecturers without experience of school teaching are
unsuitable examiners for Form 6 students. I believe these arguments
do carry weight.
2. While some of the USP Preliminary courses are similar to those of the
New Zealand University Entrance prescriptions (e.g. Mathematics),
there are others which are quite different and are unlikely to prove
acceptable in their present form for obtaining the recognition of
school and university authorities outside the region. The English and
History papers, for instance, are considerably different in content and
level of intellectual demand.
3. The standard of the Preliminary Examinations, according to
information I received, is lower than that of New Zealand University
Entrance examinations in several subjects. This is not surprising.
Extension Studies courses represent only 14 weeks' work at Form 6
level, generally without face-to-face contact; UE courses represent a
whole school year, with 50-60 minutes teacher contact each day.
There may be other ways in which the University might participate in
Form 6 examinations, but I doubt the wisdom of promoting Model 3(b) as
it stands.
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Model 3(c) allows for Fiji to set regional examinations at Form 6 level. As
the Fiji Minister of Education has publicly invited regional countries to
take the planned Fiji examinations (under an independent Fiji
Examination Board), the model must be given some consideration. There
is a precedent in the case of Tuvalu, which uses the Fiji Junior
Examination at Form 4 level. I canvassed opinion for this model in several
countries, but found no support for it. If there had been regional
consultation before the public announcement, it is possible that a Fiji
Examination, with regional representation on its Board, might have
attracted some support. Present political realities, however, seem to pose
an insuperable obstacle to Fiji-controlled regional examinations at Form 6
level.
So, there you have several models. There are others and some of you may
see a better solution than any of those, but I hope that what I have said will
provide the basis for some serious thought and discussion.
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