Improving Examination System in Punjab, Pakistan

The process of assessment is supporting tool for the overall system of education and is carried out at the end of the cycle to prepare future plan about the objectives, selection of the content, learning experiences provided to the students. But reality is this, that the assessment system has completely taken over the education process and is controlling all other activities of the educational process. Hence, instead of assessing what we teach, we teach what we have processed?

Lack of human and material resources and their wrong -utilization, ill-planning, lack of proper implementation and weak monitoring has resulted in low quality of education in the developing countries like Pakistan. Coupled with these factors, problems exist with the basic elements of educational process objectives, curriculum, teaching methodology, and assessment and evaluation.

Assessment and evaluation is closely linked with measuring the quality of learning outcomes and providing feedback to the main actors in the educational process, students and teachers. Improvement in the system of education particularly the curriculum and the instructional strategies is made in the light of feedback provided by the assessment. However assessment may not be a solution for all ills, it can definitely be used to improve the quality of education by conducting it effectively and providing feedback to the stakeholders in timely manner.

Eight BISEs (Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education) are working in Punjab one each at Divisional/Regional level. There is no denying the fact that some reforms have been carried out at BISEs level in Punjab for the last few years. For example, the weighting of purely essay or subjective-type questions have been reduced and a balance between objective and subjective type questions has been provided. Consequently, MCQs (30pc), short answer (40pc), and essay-type items (30pc) are included in the examination papers administered by all education boards in Punjab in various subjects at secondary school and higher secondary school examination. But still there is a need for further improvement.

Some problems and issues arise at the stage of paper setting and it’s marking.
During the preparation of various tests, the emphasis is always on the lower cognitive levels - knowledge and comprehension. The higher cognitive skills such as problem solving and analytical skills are rarely touched. More than 50 per cent of the questions assess students recall or mere rote memorization, which is one of the main reasons for the poor quality of education and its ultimate product. Many times students who attain very good or excellent grades in education boards at secondary or higher secondary level can not apply the knowledge and skills attained in the classroom to the real life situations.

This system of examination can not truly assess the learning outcomes envisaged in the national curriculum.  The situation is almost similar at secondary and higher secondary levels and across all disciplines. In view of the above mentioned unsatisfactory situation and in the context of examining students learning outcomes in line with the National Curriculum, there is a need to bring more reforms to ensure the quality of question papers and marking mechanisms.  Following suggestions may be useful in brining positive change in this regard.

All education boards need to tag the internal or continuous assessment of the students made by their teachers at school/college level with their achievement in terminal examination.

All the national and provincial governments must ensure to establish a body for test development and reporting which should be responsible for the continuous training of coordinators, paper setters and examiners in test item development and analysis, and develop guidelines for evaluation of answer sheets by the evaluators/examiners. Teachers having required expertise in subject matter, assessment skills, especially test development and analysis of results should be appointed in that body through a high powered Selection Committee. The body should involve the experts in the field of assessment and psychometrics to provide ongoing training to the paper setters as well as analysis of results for providing feedback to the individuals as well as schools in order to improve their future performance.

Only training workshops for the paper setters will not serve the purpose of improving quality of papers. Trainings should be an ongoing activity of the BISEs, universities and other examination conducting authorities.

A permanent research cell should be established in each education board, which has either not been established or has failed to achieve the desired objectives of conducting research and providing insight to education boards for improvement of assessment system. The new proposed body should acquire this role. It should also organize training workshops for coordinators, paper setters and examiners in different subjects at secondary and higher secondary levels.

Existing system of MCQs, short answer and essay-type questions is good but the need is to include more questions which can assess student’s higher cognitive abilities.

All context dependent questions may be set on the pattern of O and A Levels. Unnecessarily lengthy questions should be strictly avoided and emphasis must be on assessing problem solving, analytical and reasoning abilities.