New system in schools: Examinations every four months in all classes

The existing examination system? It presents difficulties in the quality of the examination papers, questions the validity of the content of the writings, does not enable the support of the candidates who present basic and cognitive weaknesses.

These are some of the negative elements of the Pancyprian Examinations (PE), as recorded by the committee that undertook the evaluation of the institution. Her proposal, as it is known, was delivered last week to the Minister of Education, Costas Kadis, and envisages, among other things, the introduction of examinations every four months in all classes of Secondary Education and the separation of Pancyprians into dismissal and access exams.

Today the details of the proposal are revealed, as well as the reasoning of the committee for each of its suggestions:

Considers that PEs should be divided into Pancyprian Examinations for the purpose of dismissal (PEA) from public or private Secondary Education, which will serve the formative purpose of assessment, and Pancyprian Examinations for the purpose of access (PEP) to public HEIs in Cyprus and of Greece, which will serve the comparative purpose of evaluation.

Therefore, it deems appropriate that the evaluation for formative purposes of the students of the XNUMXrd Lyceum and Technical Schools should not be limited only to the end of the school year, but should be done at the end of each four months. In particular, it is suggested that the first cycle of PEAs take place at the end of the first four months, in order to provide the opportunity for teachers and students to use the results of the evaluation at the beginning of the second four months.

Based on the results of the evaluation of the first four months, supportive / supportive teaching will be provided for two or three weeks, in order to cover the main cognitive weaknesses of the students, as well as their better and timely preparation for the RDPs.

The second round of exams will take place at the end of the second four months, and will aim on the one hand to dismiss the students and on the other hand to better prepare them for the RDP.

According to experts, this goal will be achieved by utilizing the results to cover students' cognitive weaknesses.

Then, the results of the exams of the second four months will be analyzed and based on these, supportive / supportive teaching of two weeks will be offered to the students, especially to those who are behind and to those who will attend the PEP.

During this period teachers will have the opportunity to give more importance to the teaching of those modules, in the examination of which there are low results and to help their students to overcome the difficulties they encountered.

After the end of the two weeks, the RDPs will follow, which will have an exclusively comparative purpose, for the purposes of classifying the candidates in the various Schools / Departments of the public HEIs of Cyprus and Greece.

Therefore, RDPs will include topics with a high degree of distinction. In this way, the committee expects that the issue of distortions observed in the existing system will be resolved through the implementation of statistical processing.

Theme Bank


According to the committee, because the purpose of the evaluation to be carried out at the end of the first four months will be formative, it considers that the test papers should be prepared on the basis of a table of specifications that will be consistent with the content and adequacy indicators of the New Curriculum. Program (NAP).

Regarding the preparation of the examination papers of the proposed formative assessment system, it is suggested that as many teachers as possible be directly involved, who - by submitting possible topics that will cover specific aspects of the table of specifications or suggestions for the correction guide - will contribute in the development of a Question Bank.

Specifically, teachers will be able to post suggestions on possible topics, comment on other suggestions or results that emerged from their pilot grant.

Subsequently, the directorates of Secondary General and Secondary Technical Education will be responsible for the configuration of the final Question Bank to be used for the PEA. The final Question Bank will not be accessible by teachers or students.

Three additional (test) measures

The Committee also considers it necessary:

1. The conversion of the current promotion exams - in all classes of Gymnasium, Lyceum and Technical Schools - into formative exams, corresponding to the PEA. The examinations will be conducted at school level at the end of the two four months and will be based on the curriculum of each four months of all examined for the purpose of promoting courses.

2. The introduction of formative examinations at school level for the transition of students from Primary to High School. In this way, the needs of the students who will attend the High School will be identified, with the result that the teachers will be able to organize their teaching in a more efficient way.

3. Taking specific measures for the students to be examined: They will be required to attend a special two-week support / enhancement teaching program to fill the learning gaps. After this period they will be given the opportunity to re-attend examinations for the transition to the next class (examinations), which will now be conducted for all classes of Gymnasium, Lyceum and Technical Schools at the end of June and not at the beginning of September.

Source: FILELEFTHEROS