Acts of Journalism (Part III)

Why Test?

A-Levels, AS Levels, GCSE, SATs, IB, Internal Examinations – all part of normal school life, but at some point you’ve got to ask: What’s it all for? Especially when hacks in politics and the media are saying they’re worthless and Universities are saying that they’re not useful for admissions.

The truth is, schools are obsessed with results, the mere existence of a league table makes schools want to climb it. This is one of the many reasons why testing, particularly over-testing, is a bad thing.

The desire to climb the league tables puts pressure on both the teachers and, more importantly, the pupils. Everything is directed towards the exams in the last three years of school. It’s understandable – not only do these exams contribute to the school’s coveted league table position, but for the pupils, everything turns on these exams, their future rests on their ability to fulfil some very narrow criteria on a couple of days in the summer.

It is bizarre that exams taken in late adolescence define the scope of your life for decades. It would be risible if it were not so serious. For, while it may be hard for the intelligentsia at Dulwich College to imagine, there are many for whom failure at GCSE is a very real possibility, and for these people, there is little hope of respite from the life of drudgery to which they are doomed. The consequences of such a failure could be, and in many cases, is catastrophic.

However, for those who do pass, even for those who pass with flying colours, there is little benefit. The formulaic nature of these exams and the strict criteria which one must fulfil are so dogmatic as to render the educational benefit of the examinations system nil. Lessons are no longer about learning, they are about jumping through hoops while the ringmaster of the examinations circus cracks his whip. Schools are no longer produce educated people, but parrots and trained monkeys.

The problem with exams is not their supposed ‘easiness’, as the hacks would have us believe, but their sheer lack of value. Students are unable to explore subjects in depth, only what is needed is taught as the deadline of the examinations season approaches. Exams, far from helping, have failed schoolchildren on a catastrophic level.