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Exams: Success loses meaning if there are no failures

I refer to the malaysiakini article, A blueprint of neglect.

One can only wonder about which educational system and blueprint K Arumugam is talking about. Could it be, that the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) are moving into opposite directions? If the National Education Blueprint 2006-2010 really 'propels our education system to world class standards and make our children think out-of-the-box', the tertiary level will no doubt put them back into the box.

The responsible ministry is set to move our students onto the bandwagon of 'Outcome Based Education' (OBE), a questionable and scientifically unproven method, considered past its sell-by-date in the developed world. At least in higher education.

A method that excludes any failures, considers all students as successes, and offers unlimited time and chances to pass by reproducing strictly previously trained skills. It has a lot to offer young kids, the handicapped and those in vocational training. Maybe for craftsmen, when laying a pipe and installing a water tap are criteria for passing marks, too.

But in academia it is a death knell for knowledge. Academicians should be trained to think independently. Their work is supposed to be original and creative. OBE aspires for the opposite - a well-defined path with all and any step prescribed for the learner to reach the well-defined target. By definition an exam in OBE must not contain any skills untaught; examining learning transfer is sneezed upon by the proponents.

One can only guess the reasons for making the MoHE so set on achieving what the MoE wants to do away with - a purely exam-oriented culture. Can it be the usual undercurrents to achieve a specific agenda that renders this ill-thought-through method so attractive to the MoHE ?

My concern is to watch another 'lost generation' grow up, with a huge, if not inflated, sense of achievement at home while being not competitive abroad at the same time. One deprives 'success' of any meaning, when the contrary, or any alternative to success, is abolished.

Last year, I had the chance to observe the examination phase of a course conducted at an institute of tertiary education. The title of the course was essentially 'Creative Thinking'. The exam was testing the learning outcome by asking questions identical to the ones answered during lecture hours.

As far as I could make out, none of the students pinned down something to the effect of: 'I happen to be able to think critically, therefore I can only consider this subject and more so this exam laughable. Rote learning and scribbling down what our honoured lecturer has hammered into our heads while flipping hundreds of pre-fab slides is exactly not about critical thinking.'

Had one of the students dared to do this, he might have to endure disciplinary measures. And surely, he would have failed the exam. Deservedly, since he was not even able to formulate the relevant arguments for critical thinking that he had been taught!

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