Let's open the doors for a new system of examinations

Dr. Indira LILAMANI GINIGE

Sri Lanka is a developing country. A country that does not have sufficient resources to provide what is considered good to everybody. The examinations have come to the fore in this context to provide a justifiable means for allocating the limited available opportunities. Developed countries for long have used examinations to select the gifted for the Schools of Excellence. They do this in view of producing a high quality citizenry for national development. The examinations in our country that selected candidates for bursaries and higher education in the past are utilised today to provide a good school for the young of the nation. The practice of getting the ten year olds to sit a competitive examination to eligible to apply for a good school is associated with a number of detrimental effects. At a time where the examination certificate determines almost everything, it is not surprising that the Sri Lankan system of education has turned out to be highly examination-oriented.

The examinations that take the young towards productive ends have won the full attention of the public today. The problem, however, lies in the fact that all types of stakeholders have begun to consider the examination as an end in itself rather than a means to a desired end. In their enthusiasm to get good grades for all their subjects, the students preparing for public examinations often lose sight of the real ends that they thrive to achieve.

For example, the youth completing university degrees forget that they have to fit into the available employment opportunities at the end of their academic career. Similarly those who qualify for a stream of study at the GCE (AL) forget that they have to complete their studies smoothly in the stream selected. Moreover, those getting good schools with good results at the Grade 5 scholarship examination fail to remember that they have to demonstrate remarkable success in their secondary education. With a large number of candidates who pass different types of examinations thus unable to meet the expectations at the destination, we are compelled to believe that our examinations have failed in their role of screening the qualified or the most suitable for the purpose under concern.

Many youth leaving our schools and higher education institutes today find it difficult to benefit from the employment opportunities that are abundant around them. The private sector continues to criticize the products of education saying that they are neither trainable nor employable. Lack of entrepreneurial skills also does not allow the graduates of both general and higher education to take up self-employment. Neither the school nor the university has helped them to develop awareness on their own strengths, weaknesses, abilities and inabilities. Very few are in a position to make optimum use of their immediate environment by selecting opportunities that are in line with their strengths and minimising the negative effects of the threats. Moreover, many are not empowered to take risks, make their own decisions, and stand on their own feet. With limited preparation to face challenges of work and life thus, the young continue to depend on the government to provide them with secure State sector jobs.

Now what is at the heart of all these problems? There is no doubt that it is the examination-oriented learning and teaching prevalent in our classrooms that has given rise to this unhealthy situation. In view of passing examinations, our children for long have depended on external knowledge provided to them by the teacher. This knowledge that is pre-determined can also be obtained through printed, electrical and electronic sources. A number of methods have also evolved to impart this knowledge to the young. It is good to continue with what we have for the reason that it helps us maintain our cultural heritage.

Yet confining ourselves to traditional sources and methods of teaching and learning does not provide us with adequate opportunity to prepare our children for the emerging future or to get them thrive for a favourable future, which is pre-determined. Looking for shortcuts to get at the existing, external knowledge is found unproductive for the reason that it remains with us only for a short while. The children acquiring such knowledge inactively from the teacher or the text book forget all what they learn soon after the examination. The traditional methods used to impart the knowledge also prepare them to react to situations rather than be proactive to overcome future challenges.

Let us first look at the main knowledge base on which our learners depend. Most of them look up to knowledge available to the teacher. In view of meeting this need, the teachers today deliver lectures, read text books or dictate notes from the text book or any other source. In other words they are in the habit of transmitting the available knowledge as it is. The teacher talk prominent in the classroom does not activate the students to learn joyfully or develop life competencies as part of normal learning. In a learning environment where listening is dominant, there is no opportunity for the children to find out for themselves by reflecting, observing, reading, discussing or doing things either individually or in groups.

Children today listen to their teachers attentively to grasp the factual knowledge available to them.

Later they spend time with their notes to prepare for the examination. Will the children learning thus be able to develop the basic skills demanded by a rapidly changing society? Teachers no longer can consider their students as empty mugs. They cannot continue to fill these mugs merely by reading out from text books, delivering lectures or by posing questions one after the other for the children to respond.

Such methods that have been successful in simple and static societies of the past do not provide much opportunity for the students to think in the learning process and prevents them from developing the much-needed creative and critical thinking skills. Analytical and logical thinking are at the heart of critical thinking. Inductive or deductive logic provides the means for logical thinking. A learning-teaching process, which provides little opportunity for the children to develop the above thinking skills, fails to produce a citizenry that can make good decisions, solve problems or manage conflicts.

The wealth of education is not just knowledge but the experience that we derive by using this knowledge.

In other words education cannot be considered a wealth when the learners acquire knowledge for the mere sake of passing examinations. Education becomes a wealth only when the learners begin to experience the knowledge.

Yet in the examination-oriented education system of Sri Lanka the children have continued to acquire knowledge with the sole intention of getting good grades at the examinations. Very few have taken at least some action to convert at least a part of this knowledge into worthwhile lifelong practices referred to as competencies.

Tomorrow's global society will be complex and dynamic. In a system of education that focuses on examinations, the children miss a number of skills that they need to be successful in this emerging society. The problems to be experienced in future are not simple by any means. A single person will not be able to solve these complex problems single-handed. All this requires different people to look at different facets of the same problem. Even one single facet of a problem will be so complex preventing one person from solving it. A need, therefore, exists to make the younger generation comfortable with co-operative learning.

This is an approach to learning, which calls for co-operation among people for solving complex problems. It requires different groups to explore different facets of the same problem with a view to sharing their exploration findings later to search for solutions to the problem. Moreover, this is an era where we cannot depend on a teacher to get at all the knowledge that we are in need of.

This situation increases the importance of the peer group and makes it an asset in the learning-teaching process. Moreover, we are loaded today with information that comes to us in printed, electric and electronic forms. Reading provides us the tool to access this information. Skimming that comes under reading helps us find the relevant information while scanning enables us to go deep into what we have found. All this highlights the value of developing reading skills to become successful learners of the future.

Children should develop the above mentioned skills while they are young and tender. It is only a wet piece of clay that can be used for moulding. Once the clay is hard and dry we find it unsuitable for the task.

Children in school are different from adults for the flexibility they demonstrate. All this brings to light the importance of the childhood in changing people. Development of thinking, socials and personal skills has to be initiated with children and not with adults who are resistant to change.

In spite of this pressing need, the examination-oriented learning and teaching have continued to distort the instructional process preventing the children from developing the many skills that they need for an integrated personality.

All these days we have been retaining the known and learning the pre-determined with little or no attempt even to construct what is. Today we see the advantages of revising the known, exploring the undetermined and constructing what might be. To reach these new ends productively we have to make a concerted effort to sharpen the thinking skills of the nation and develop social and personal skills of individuals by improving their inter and intra personal abilities.

To bring about the correct type of citizen that is a must for a new Sri Lanka, providers of basic and higher education should think of a drastic change in the instructional practices they currently adopt. This revolution, however, should start at school level where the learners are flexible for grooming. For the new instructional practices recommended by the first curriculum reform of the new millennium to take root at the classroom level, doors have to open for a new system of authentic evaluations both at school and national level with strong parental support for school-based assessments as well.

The writer is Assistant Director General (Curriculum Development), Faculty of Science and Technology, National Institute of Education