Inadequacies in primary school student assessment

(Baonghean) - At the end of the first school year of implementing the assessment of primary school students according to Circular 30, the most obvious thing to see is that there are many titles awarded to students, thereby creating timely encouragement and creating interest in learning. However, the way of recording certificates of merit in schools is not consistent, causing many parents and teachers to wonder about the consideration of titles in schools today.

At the end of the 2014-2015 school year, most primary school parents were concerned about their children's academic performance evaluation results. While some students were praised for "Completing their tasks well", other schools wrote "Outstanding excellent students", "Outstanding students", "Students who overcame difficulties", "Students who were enthusiastic about the Youth Union", "Good at Math", "Talented for singing"... making parents confused.

Ms. Nguyen Thi T., whose child is in grade 2 at Hung Dung Primary School, shared: Almost all children are rewarded but do not understand how the forms of reward are different. On the other hand, some schools still control the percentage of outstanding students, while others do not, causing unfairness in student evaluation.

Ms. Ngo Thi Nguyet, Deputy Head of Vinh City Education Department, admitted: In fact, in Vinh City, the end-of-year assessment in schools is "different from school to school". Circular 30 does not regulate the control of the percentage of outstanding students in schools but only provides assessment criteria. On that basis, schools will classify students based on actual conditions. To assess students, in addition to the scores of the year-end test, teachers also assess based on the process of effort, participation in movements and through the channel of students self-assessment with each other such as good study, good social activities, good relationships with friends, teachers... Therefore, it is very difficult to have an absolutely accurate quantification in assessing students.

A class of students at Dien Quang Primary School (Dien Chau).

The reason for this situation is that parents do not understand the nature of the awards and titles their children receive. All the titles are printed solemnly on the same type of certificate, making parents confused.

Meanwhile, according to the regulations of the Department of Education and Training of Nghe An in Official Dispatch No. 573/SGD&DT-GDTH, there are 5 reward groups including: Students with a good formation and development process in terms of qualities, abilities and learning results in subjects, with periodic test scores of all subjects reaching 9.0 or higher are ranked as "Outstanding students of the 2014 - 2015 school year"; students with high achievements in one of the 3 educational contents are ranked as "Students with achievements in... school year 2014 - 2015"; Students with outstanding learning process and results in one or several subjects are ranked as "Students with achievements in subjects or educational activities..., school year 2014 - 2015"; Students with difficult circumstances but have made great efforts to overcome difficulties in studying are ranked as “Outstanding students in the spirit of overcoming difficulties in studying, school year 2014 - 2015”. The regulation is like that, but the propaganda to parents is not thorough, while primary schools in the area do not follow this instruction to implement but arbitrarily add titles to the certificates of merit… this invisibly causes a situation of “chaos” in rewards.

Discussing the current rewards for primary school students according to Circular 30, Mr. Tran The Son, Deputy Head of Primary Education Department - Department of Education and Training said: In previous years, student evaluation was only based on test results and therefore it was very easy for us to quantify to evaluate a good, fair, or average student based on learning results as in the traditional way. The evaluation method according to Circular 30 also helps teachers detect and promptly adjust teaching methods to have a regular and positive impact on students; helps managers change the way they manage teaching and educational activities; helps parents change their perception of their children's learning from the purpose of learning to get points, to compete, to learning for comprehensive development.

Mr. Son said that because this is a new policy, many managers and teachers are not familiar with the new assessment method and many teachers are still influenced by traditional assessment and classification methods. In the process of assessing students, due to teachers' lack of awareness, the exchange and agreement between homeroom teachers and subject teachers have not been focused on regularly and towards efficiency; the skill of synthesizing daily comments into general comments at the end of the month, many teachers are still stuck and confused, leading to difficulty in accurately assessing students' abilities at the end of the school year. Some classes have too many students, so monitoring the learning outcomes, formation and development of qualities and abilities of each student is difficult, accuracy and objectivity are not high; some teachers are too inert, so they are afraid of innovation, afraid of accepting new things; Some teachers do not fully understand Circular 30 (purpose of assessment, use of assessment results...), so the assessment and classification of students at the end of the year is still a perfunctory and formal phenomenon. In order for Circular 30 to bring practical results, schools need to promptly overcome the current shortcomings in student assessment and classification.

My Ha