Examination Results

nomad97

nomad97

Resident Geek
My two daughters have just received their examination results for the end of term exams. However, for the first time none of the children in the school, some 3,000 students, have been given their ranking withing their respective classes. Without this important classification/ranking it is impossible for parents to see if their child is doing well or otherwise relative to their peers. Seems a retrograde step to me and begs the question why?

With all the teachers and ex head teachers on this forum, I would like to ask if this is common practice within the teaching profession or something new that has been introduced by this government?
 
Same with my kids. They receive an overall ranking from 1-4. My kids are in M1 and M4. my daughter in M1 was told she must achieve more than 2.5 to be eligible to go beyond M3
 
There is so much skullduggery over exam results that, if I were the parent, I would go and ask to see the full class results. Otherwise it is too easy for teachers to favour some students and downmark others. This even happened in a good university, and I know it happens in many schools.
 
You would like to think that just maybe they are adopting a more western style by not excluding the more challenged students by outing them to give them a chance instead of being pushed down by their teachers and peers making the situation worse. Having said that, this is Thailand the country of abuses where the well healed is put ahead and suspicion of authority is often warranted.
 
I would rather not make any comment regarding how a teacher decides to grade any student if it is not strictly based on class participation, completed course projects , thought process aptitude evaluation and test results.

Theoretically...
A = 3.5 - 4 (90 - 100%)
B = 3 - 3.4 (80 - 89%)
C = 2.5 - 2.9 (70 - 79%)
D = 2 - 2.4 (60 - 69%)
F = 1.9 (59%)

Basically look at the grade and contemplate on exactly what the grade was based.
Shouldn't a 3.5 would be a very good grade indeed ?
How could student grade be a 3 if their actual test scores were below 60% ?

As for the class standing of a student any computerized system should be able to spit that out.
Possibly your child's teacher at the school can explain what happened to class standing profiles.

In the end this is a society based on face , saving face, respect, waiing et al...school is just part of that.
 
Rice said:
You would like to think that just maybe they are adopting a more western style by not excluding the more challenged students by outing them to give them a chance instead of being pushed down by their teachers and peers making the situation worse. Having said that, this is Thailand the country of abuses where the well healed is put ahead and suspicion of authority is often warranted.
Click to expand...

If you meant well heeled , I fully concur.

How is your arm mending, Rice ?
 
Coffee, the school reports are quite detailed and show how many marks were possible for each of 12 subjects and how many were scored in each exam. The only thing missing was the class standing which had always been shown previously. My wife did challenge the teachers concerned and managed to see one of them yesterday. She said something along the lines that following new directions she was not allowed to give a class standing for our daughter although she was more than happy to let my wife see the results for all the children. A quick review of these results easily determined how our daughter had done. The other teacher was not there (absent at a meeting) so my wife is going to try again today.

I am nor sure the school is applying the grading system as shown by you:

A = 3.5 - 4 (90 - 100%)
B = 3 - 3.4 (80 - 89%)
C = 2.5 - 2.9 (70 - 79%)
D = 2 - 2.4 (60 - 69%)
F = 1.9 (59%)

Overall, both daughters obtained some 83% for the combined total and individually they had a fair sprinkling of 4's and 3.5's. On the chart you posted they should have been awarded 3's and 3.5's with a couple of 2.5's for good measure. Unfortunately, the reports have been returned to school so I cannot do a detailed analysis - I will do next time around.
 
1) Yes , quite right...12 subjects for young ones.
Yes - the core of youthful education including math, science , Thai history , Thai culture, Thai music and dance, Thai language (core) , art, Buddhism, future occupational options and English alphabet, spelling and grammar.

2) Of course the school is not utilizing the same grading system shown by me.
How could you expect them to assign grades that carried merit ?
Remember when you were in school and a B was in the low 80's and a B+ was to be respected as over an 85.

Should one who is evaluated in the low 80s really be awarded 3.5 and 4 ?

Yes, the reports are quite detailed. Ask SWMBO to translate some of those details. ('Love of country' , self-sufficiency, helpfulness, respect...?)
In some schools the attendance records must be detailed to substantiate funding.

Please don't take my words critically as most education systems around the world are struggling to produce higher academic standards. That type of thinking is not always synonymus with a national agenda.
 
When I was running the scholarship scheme in Northern Thailand, I saw quite a number of student grades, both at secondary and tertiary level. In some schools, a high proportion of students get 3.5 or above; in others, few get above 2.5.

Grades can be, and often are, changed arbitrarily by the head teacher. This happens even at university level. One teacher friend of mine met a student he had failed, and was thanked for giving her a C! (The department head had 'felt sorry for her').

And in another university, a teacher handed out a list of 'gifts' he wanted. If a student gave him one of the expensive ones, he got an A. That teacher went on to become a Head of Department in anther (private) university.

Don't get me started on this!
 
Ranking students in numerical order probably serves no useful purpose other than making the top performers (and their parents) feel great and lowering the esteem of the less gifted academics (and their parents). Any results (numerical scores, number or letter ratings) should be based against the individual child's performance.
 
AussieBill said:
Ranking students in numerical order probably serves no useful purpose other than making the top performers (and their parents) feel great and lowering the esteem of the less gifted academics (and their parents). Any results (numerical scores, number or letter ratings) should be based against the individual child's performance.
Click to expand...


Thanks Bill for the explanation. I think I have been outside the educational system for way too long to realise that ranking students was no longer the norm. Perhaps Surin's leading Government school has just adopted this principle this year/term. It would have been nice to have been informed of the change in thinking by way of an explanatory letter. As it was/is, this new system has been introduced without any such notification or comment.

My personal interest in this matter has nothing to do with ranking my children with their peers per se but more to do with the vexed question of whether or not my daughters should do 'extra learning'. The ranking system previously employed gave me an easy marker with which to guage their overall performance against their peers. Personally, I am against the principle of 'extra learning' being necessary to augment the lessons given at school and a pre-requisit to attain the higher grades in the end of term exams. My children do not attend 'extra learning' classes in any way so the results they obtain at school are based solely on what they have been taught at the school (and augmented by self-learning and encouragement in the home). Most of their peers attend 1 or 2 hours 'extra learning' each evening in addition to further classes on both Saturdays and Sundays. Quite honestly, I feel very sorry for all the millions of school children in Thailand that do 'extra learning' day-in and day-out throughout their entire academic career, 2 + 6 + 6 years in total (kindergarten + junior + secondary education). This makes for very long days and lost weekends and, in my opinion, essentially deprives the children of their childhood. Firstly, I feel that it should not be necessary for children to do 'extra learning' as a de facto addition to normal schooling. Secondly, I am more than just a little sceptical about the motives of the teaching fraternity in this country that provide these services. I maybe a little cynical about this but I think it has nothing to do with benefitting the child and all to do with providing a very significant second and tax-free income stream for those same teachers that give the children their normal classes. Based on the numbers I have seen this year, and the cost for these extra classes, I would guess that most teachers more than double their income in this manner.
 
AussieBill said:
Ranking students in numerical order probably serves no useful purpose other than making the top performers (and their parents) feel great and lowering the esteem of the less gifted academics (and their parents). Any results (numerical scores, number or letter ratings) should be based against the individual child's performance.
Click to expand...

A ranking, as also an average grading serves no real purpose in my view. Of the 10/12 subjects that make up the average grading, many of those I would not condider that important, and should not count to whether the student continues in school past M3. I have in mind religion sports and music specifically. Kids who are excellent at maths and science (as my son is) -he's in M4- are unnecessarily marked down as he has no interest in religion or music
 
Nomad, I believe the last two sentences of your post yesterday afternoon are quite correct (as cynical as we may sound).

Truthfully, any extra learning will benefit the child whether outside the regular school week setting or provided for at home.
In many countries that type of extra learning system is a fact of life particularly if parents are employed.

* Tutoring is a fine way to obtain extra income as well.

Keep in mind that schooling seven days a week are de rigueur in many Asian nations...Japan , Korea, Singapore and parts of China just in order to obtain the prestigious university placements. Though those students must place higher on their national standardized national testing scale ...not based on school grades.

* Note: Any students that attend his or her teacher's extra lessons will be rewarded come grade time, wouldn't you think so ?
 
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Extra tuition should never be necessary, if the school, and the teacher, are doing their job properly.

Students of all ages need time away from their studies to develop their own interests, which will probably be not academic.

Your first two posts, Coffee, sounded like Teacher Training 101. The way the system is supposed to work, but rarely does.

How many teachers in Thailand have ever thought about thought process aptitude evaluation ? In fact, I wonder how many know what it means (I don't).

I used to do some work for the Hong Kong Examinations Authority, which organised massive examinations taken by up to 140,000 students at one time. The exams I dealt with required students to write essays. Few knew how to organise their thoughts, and indeed, few had any thoughts to organise. And that was Hong Kong, which has a much better education system than Thailand.
 
For the 2 years of kindergarten we did let our youngest daughter do 'extra learning' (sic) for 500 Baht/month. Extra learning it was not but more of a child minding fee so that she stayed at school until such time that her elder sister signed her out of class, usually 1 hour later. That was done for convenience so that I did not have to do 2 collection runs 1 hour apart. However, I do see across the road from where I live kindergarten kids coming around for extra learning each Saturday morning, usually for 4 hours at a time. Now I am quite sure there is a time and place for 'extra learning' but I do not think it starts at kindergarten grade. I share IB's view that it should not be necessary for any extra tuition although I do accept that homework is a necessary evil. Extra tuition should only be used as a tool to hone up their examination skills for key exams if necessary and then only for a limited time, if at all. It should not be necessary year in and year out throughout 14 years of state schooling.
 
I the place where I work they have just built a combined little kids school/kindergarten plus swimming pool. @ 50k a term, the huge building has 11 students and a handful of kindergarten kids. One (hard worked Falang) teacher and a few others teaching Thai & Chinese
 
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