Over the years, I have examined many exam papers for high school students in Papua New Guinea and found some to be totally unfair. A curriculum is the guide to the teacher as it should also be to the examiner and authors of the school books.
Sometimes I feel that some curriculum writers, book authors and examiners are all on different planets in relation to students. There is at times only a vague link between the students and the work being put out.
A curriculum is supposed to set out a big picture in both theory and practice. This often does not happen if there is total focus on the theory.
The result in most schools is that students who do not have a text book are given blackboard summaries by the teacher that copy exclusively from the only text book held by the teacher. There can be no forward work by the more capable students.
This is not learning but rote copying of the thoughts of other people. But then the exam paper arrives at the end of the year, at times posted by an examiner living on planet Mars.
A curriculum is designed to show the whole picture and the parts. The teacher has the job of relating the theory to practical examples to be mastered by the students.
But a teacher has also to prepare the students for exams that can be unfair, quirky, ambiguous and not testing the whole picture. The examiners who set papers in Papua New Guinea can be authoritarian and intellectually narrow.
They force students into responding to questions that are vague with angles probably not covered in class. Some examiners are from the ranks of the teachers who think that their role is to fail students.
There are no options. Questions often do not require general answers that cover the topics. Questions should give students a range of options. If not sure of one question, they can choose another.
A fair, comprehensive and valid question could be set as below. This tests knowledge and understanding.
Explain in your own words ONE of the following:
How to build up esteem within a family, OR
Ways a parent can damage esteem, OR
What a young man OR woman should think of in choosing a wife OR husband OR
How might family members deal with a problem in relationships? (10 marks)
Students should be able to look at the exam paper and rejoice that they are being tested on what they know. The reaction of many students is probably fear and a drop in morale at the start of perusal time in an exam. It all looks different and not for them.
High school studies must have a set curriculum, practical exercises in Mastery Learning, a text book that covers the curriculum, internal tests based on the curriculum and an external exam covering a fair range of options from the curriculum.
If students fail after that, it may not be the fault of the system.
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