Where is the score for me?

(Baonghean.vn) - Teacher Ho Tuan Khoi, a specialist of the Nghe An Department of Education and Training, once wondered: "Holding the pen to write down a score of two/Hearing my heart restless/Oh, this score is not/Only for me?". The exam questions do not simply evaluate the students' test results but also evaluate the level of the authors of the questions.

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These days, in Hanoi, 300 km away from our hometown, we still hear conflicting opinions about the 5th grade exam questions of Vinh city primary schools.

I am writing this when my son, also a 5th grader at a primary school in Dong Da district (Hanoi), is engrossed in playing with his classmates at Ecopark. After playing, we say goodbye to each other, and next year each child will choose a school to attend. At Trung Tu school, 5th graders do not have to write letters, and parents do not discuss whether the exam is easy or difficult. Of course, the Department of Education and Training and, more importantly, the Ministry of Education and Training do not have to get involved, and the press does not have to waste ink. At the school my son attends, the school sets the exam questions, the teachers cross-mark them, and the principal randomly checks the 5th graders' exams, and that's it.

How easy and simple. Perhaps the Vinh City Department of Education and Training is one of the few units nationwide that “puts the yoke around its neck” by taking the right to create the 5th grade semester exam questions.

Everyone was surprised.

Fifth grade students at a school in Hanoi after their semester exams. Photo: An Thanh.

I also sympathize with the concerns of Mr. Thai Khac Tan - Head of Vinh City Department of Education and Training when answering Nghe An Newspaper:“This, if said to be unusual, is true because from 2014 onwards, the city's annual periodic tests were about 1,800 points 10 in Math, 1,000 points 10 in Vietnamese (accounting for about 60%)". Perhaps, after many years as Head of the Department of Education and Training, Mr. Tan "vaguely" saw the unreasonableness, so he decided“Apply common test questions for 5th grade students".

Then, last year, Vinh City education workers were startled: "From last year until now, after the city applied a common test for 5th graders, the number of students has decreased significantly. For example, last year, the city only had 49 scores of 10 in Math and 69 scores of 10 in Vietnamese." After the teachers were startled, this year it was the parents' turn to be startled by the test results: "There were no 10s for both Math and Vietnamese." Many parents who saw their children get 10s in 9 semesters suddenly panicked in the 10th semester, not believing their eyes.

Exams do not simply assess the students’ performance but also the level of the authors. Publishing the “most difficult” exam questions in the Gulf of Tonkin does not mean that colleagues, parents and students appreciate the expertise of the test writers. I remember teacher Ho Tuan Khoi, a specialist of the Nghe An Department of Education and Training, once wondered: “Holding the pen to score two points/Hearing my heart restless/Oh, this point is not/Only for you?”.

Disadvantaged are students

As Mr. Thai Huy Vinh - Deputy Director of Nghe An Department of Education and Training admitted, the exam was too difficult and not in line with the spirit of reducing the workload of Circular 22. It is unreasonable for us to call for reducing the workload while increasing the difficulty of the exam. Obviously, the Ministry stipulates that the exam for students only includes 4 levels of difficulty, so it seems that students are having to do the test at "level 5". It is true that when the exam is so difficult that they cannot do it, good and bad students are... the same.

In fact, from the parents' perspective, we believe that if the situation of 60% of students getting 10 points is not an accurate reflection, then the fact that 0% of students got 10 points in Math and Vietnamese is even more inaccurate in reflecting the reality of students. The number 0% does not correspond to the results of the city's excellent student competitions during the school year.

Should semester exams just be knowledge tests, not necessarily "puzzles" for students? Photo: Internet.

Obviously, when assigning the exam questions to schools and they are not good, and then withdrawing them to the Department to create the questions is also full of shortcomings, then we need to seriously review. Firstly, this is simply a semester exam for 5th graders, there is no need for such a complicated "process", but in the end, the Head of the Department himself had to admit: "With results like this, I am a bit worried because more or less there must be students who get 10 points. We have to admit that the exam questions that the Department sets are not close to the actual level of students". Secondly, if any school does not do it correctly, the Department should correct it, not "fix one mistake with another mistake" as is happening now. Not to mention, if the school level sets the questions incorrectly, it will only affect a few schools, but if the Department level sets the questions incorrectly, up to 29 elementary schools in the city will be affected.

Let’s simplify things so that “every day at school is a happy day”, so that there are not many letters from both students and parents complaining about exams. That is the spirit of educational innovation in Circular 22.

AT