Exams cancelled? This is the next wave of impact on education systems caused by Covid-19 pandemic. The UK has cancelled its GCSE and A-Level exams. The CBSE board in India has cancelled exams for classes 10 and 12, national open school exam and the joint entrance exam, Madhya Pradesh is postponing secondary education exams until further notice. NAPLAN exams in Australia have been cancelled for the year. Pennsylvania is cancelling its PSSA testing and Keystone exams. The list goes on.
It is increasingly said that this public health crisis is prompting large questions on economic and social life that were just beneath the surface, not least in education. The case of assessing learning is just one of those.
A focus on exams gives a structure to learning. Removing that structure, and the end goal that students have been working towards – some of them for years – will be hugely disappointing, and no doubt stressful for many. “They are taking away everything I have been working for?” one girl said in the UK when she heard the news. What are the implications?
Read the full article from the Global Education Monitoring Report.
