Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Debate - Continuous evaluation should be adopted rather than examinations

 

Continuous evaluation of a student must be adapted in order to measure the student’s growth throughout the school year. The purpose of having these examinations is to measure the student’s knowledge. Usually when taking these exams, the student experiences many sources of pressure, such as peer pressure, pressure from school, pressure from parents, and sometimes pressure from themselves. The student acknowledges that, if they fail a test or get results which are less than they were expecting, they will be disappointed. Along with this, some might be demotivated to continue with that subject. The student might know the answers to the questions very well, but failed to show it during the exams because of the stress factors. Sometimes, there are also consequences for getting lower marks. For example, the student might not pass the standard they are currently studying in, or they might be restricted to certain course streams (which is the consequence for the Board Exams).

 

Often, these examinations are portrayed as a competition. Consider the board exams. If a student scores higher than their peers, they are awarded with praises and they have many course streams they could study in the future. If the student scores in the middle, they do not get a variety of courses they would study for. Some students have a dream job and want to study and achieve only that job. If the student misses that by a mark, they might not fully be content with the course they must take next. If the decision of the student’s future college was based on continuous evaluation, however, there would be a higher chance of the student getting the job which the student wanted.

 

Making continuous evaluation is one example of a replacement for final examinations. Another replacement would be many factors for college applications. Consider the United States. For college applications, the colleges usually consider:

  • Their GPA (overall performance throughout the student’s high school years)
  • Their SAT/ACT (examinations which can be taken multiple times throughout the student’s high school years, and sometimes 1-2 years, before their high school years)
  • An essay (usually about their personal experience and is used to evaluate the student’s personality)
  • Extracurricular activities (used to see how much the student participated in their school)
  • Volunteer hours (used to see how the student noticed and helped their society)

These factors help the student stand out in ways other than their academics. This measures the overall willingness of the student to study in order to help the society they live in. Continuous evaluation, like the GPA, measures the true potential of the student. Ultimately, I believe that continuous evaluation of the student measures the true potential of the student more accurately than final examinations.



~ Sharanya Kusgur - 10 IGCSE

 


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