Is it fair to assess a student’s quality basis recent grades?
Students globally are concerned about where will this year’s grades land them in their career? In this COVID crisis, exams in many countries have been cancelled and grades are awarded basis a newly formed, half baked method, which neither schools or the government agencies ever pre-planned for. Students and parents will have their own opinion on the grades they get, inflated or deflated by the education providers due to this crisis are bound to be biased. No strong evidential fairness of grading has been guided in many countries including the UK.
The Ofqual guidance issued in the UK for teachers, parents, and students on 03 April states the grades will be awarded by the:
“use of professional experience to make a fair and objective judgment”….
and
“… schools and colleges do not need to submit any supporting evidence, such as student work”
This clearly indicates that assessing a student quality basis the recent grades is not a good idea, to begin with. It's COVID at the moment but in life students, parents and we all do face other unforeseen circumstances and that can impact performance and grades which in any way doesn't represent the quality of a student or his/her potential.
We sometimes don't realize that in the current education and assessment system if a student does not score well in the deciding year (high school, GCSE, A level) the whole career path of the student changes. Students have to compromise on the choice of university, majors, courses, etc. and I don’t think it's fair.
The above problem highlights the importance of a robust admission assessment methodology at least for higher education.
Different universities have various ways of evaluating the quality of a student before offering a place; interviews, essays, tests, and portfolios but at the core students will only have the chance to go through these second layers of assessment if they qualify the “minimum eligibility”, which mainly is the basis of recent grades. More than unfair, I think it's a blind spot.
Let it be an admission assessment method or the current mundane and inefficient process, the current crisis has highlighted that it requires a much-needed makeover.
I am glad, Zilter (by Zoom Abroad) has developed a unique methodology/ software to represent the student’s quality fairly and accurately. The methodology could be used in higher education admissions and assessments and increase efficiency by automation and benchmarking.
Did you find this page is useful ?
Adapt or die — How HE is adapting to COVID? (International students context)
April 23, 2020Survival of the fittest applies to all, it’s been proven right again in the unforeseen COVID situation.
Learn more
Changing the face of International student recruitment: Technology
January 29, 2018We all have witnessed how UBER has transformed taxi industry or TripAdvisor/Trivago/Airbnb
Learn more
