Innovating school examination method

Greetings!

During my final year in school, we had a lecturer who taught us one of the core engineering courses that was supposed to be difficult because it involved the identification of materials and their strength just by looking at drawings. However, this course turned out to be the easiest for us because of how gently the lecturer handled it. The man is very rich, in fact, he is a politician who contested for the governorship election twice in my state but didn’t win. He has money and wasn’t into taxing students for marks.

He also studied abroad, and he brought those principles into teaching us. Before the exam, he would tell us, word for word, what he was going to set in the exam. According to him, how clean and accurate we presented our answers would earn us marks. That’s how he was taught in school abroad. We loved the pattern, but some people still had low scores, even though they provided the correct answers. This was because he awarded marks based on how elaborative a student was in their explanations.

To me, I think this is the best way to go about schooling. It should be based on the understanding of the students, not the other way around, where students are forced to cram and rush around in preparation for exams. Things should be made simple, and the student who finds the smartest and meriting way to solve a problem should get more marks. This is why I love mathematical courses so much. Under normal circumstances, marks are awarded based on the breakdown and processes students present, not just by rushing to the final answers, which often comes from cramming steps.

Also, there were times when we had many tests. After the lecturer gave out the questions, he would allow us to use any means, including phones, to solve them, and then he would leave the class to go chat under the palm tree while the class became rowdy, with everyone searching both heaven and earth for the answers. Those questions were incredibly tough, but we were able to arrive at the answers because, to some extent, nothing is hidden on the internet. It’s unfortunate that ChatGPT wasn’t available back then. I must say, that was an advanced way of writing a test/exam, and it was amazing how we adapted to it.

In my opinion, school has reached a stage where some of the old patterns, especially traditional strict rules, shouldn’t be implemented anymore. Let me tell you, during my final year exam, there was a design course where we were allowed to bring a very voluminous book (a chart) to solve some of the questions. Even though the invigilation was strict, a lot of people still managed to sneak in other materials inside the book, which helped them answer other questions. You see, cheating will always be there. So I believe exams should be made open, and students should be judged based on their smartness. If it involves searching for answers online, then yes, let the smartest win. After all, we are in a digital world, and everyone should be up and doing. This will also encourage those who are not technologically inclined to step up.

Thanks for reading.

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