It is the end of a school term; and, as a test of what the pupils or students have learnt, an examination is being set. Now, examination day has come. The students are seated in rows upon rows waiting for their answer sheets and examination papers.
As the tradition in examinations, all books are kept away from where the students are set to write the examination; only their writing materials are placed on their desks while waiting for the examination to get underway.
An official walks in; all the students turn to look at the official, who clears his throat as she prepares to make an announcement. “I’m sure you all have smartphones, tablets and laptops,” she begins. “Of course, this is the 21st Century, and we are keen on ensuring that you are abreast and keeping pace with global trends where technology takes the lead. We have therefore decided to allow you to come into this examination hall and any future examination with your smartphones, tablets and laptops, all of course, with Internet access.”
The students’ opened mouths show their confusion and surprise. But the official was not done yet:
“Let me tell you why we have taken this decision; and, by the way, you have 20 minutes after I finish my address to go out and bring into this examination hall all your smartphones, tablets and laptop; hopefully you did not leave them far off from here. We have now decided to encourage all pupils and students to use Google when sitting examinations.” Then, silence!
Imagine the above taking place in Nigeria. Well, you may not need to imagine; what you should begin to worry about now is what will become of education when above scenario becomes the norm and regular practice, one that pupils and students will see as a right they can even demand.
Are you worried? Yes, you should be.
The name Mark Dawe may sound distant in a place like Nigeria; for all the right reasons. He is not Nigerian; he doesn’t operate or live in Nigeria; he probably has no plans to visit or live in Nigeria; he probably has never visited the country.
But in his work, Mark Dawe must have interacted with Nigerians either directly or indirectly, given where he operates and the specific industry in which he works.
Mark Dawe is the chief executive of Oxford and Cambridge RSA (OCR); that is of course, operating in the United Kingdom. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps of millions of Nigerians, have studied, are studying and will yet study in the UK. As we write, hundreds of thousands of Nigerians are in UK schools. And, either directly or indirectly they may have had brushes with Mark Dawe or the institution in which he operates.
OCR is a leading UK awarding body, and provides qualifications which engage people of all ages and abilities at school, college, in work or through part-time learning programmes.
It works with schools, colleges, workplaces and other institutions in the public and private sector. Over 13,000 centres that choose the A Levels, GCSEs and vocational qualifications OCR offers, such as Cambridge Nationals, Cambridge Technicals and Cambridge Progression qualifications, do have Nigerians going through them.
A few weeks ago, Mark Dawe, in an interview with the Telegraph has suggested that pupils should be allowed to use Google when sitting some GCSE and A-Level tests or examinations.
“Everyone has a computer available to solve a problem but it’s then about how they interpret the results. We have tools, like Google, why would you exclude those from students’ learning?
“Surely when they learn in the classroom, everyone uses Google if there is a question. It is more about understanding what results you’re seeing rather than keeping all of that knowledge in your head because that’s not how the modern world works.” That was Mark Dawe in the Telegraph.
Thanks to the internet, these days a comment, no matter how brief or flitting, made in one corner of the world, finds its way in all other parts of the world in nanoseconds.
Dawe’s call, made in the UK meant for that environment, would already find listening ears in countries like Nigeria and others where education and the educational system are facing their worst evolutionary times yet.
While Dawe’s call has been made in an environment where education is treated as a most critical aspect of the human evolution and development, and every little detail is considered while the most effort is made in ensuring standards are not just upheld, but infrastructure and resources needed to keep the standards high are in place, countries like Nigeria no longer have any idea or consideration of the importance of education; hence the decay in the education system.
This is no platform to discuss the Nigerian education system; because the neglect, the fall in standards and the appalling decay are too clear for anyone to give testament to.
What is to be worried about here however is that Nigeria will soon jump at Dawe’s call and, without weighing on the reasons behind his call or the full details of what he meant with that call, the country will make a pronouncement that students can and should be allowed to use their gadgets and devices to access Google during examinations. Need anyone tell you what the outcome will be?
Examinations in Nigeria are terribly in need of redemption no more than the educational system itself needs a savior. Here, employers in public and private sectors look for paper qualification rather than skill. As a result therefore, students do everything possible, including and in most cases actually, the unsavoury, known as cheating, to pass their examinations and score high marks; their eyes on faster placement as they continue to higher education or employment.
Now, with Google in their hands, cheating will become official; or what do you think?
But before we swallow only the aspect of Dawe’s call, which has been in the news, people must go deeper and seek out what his real intentions are or were; and, why he made the call. Nigerians must not just jump at the easier part and turn their eyes against the important requirements.
Hey! Mark Dawe is an educationist; he is more interested to see that the system grows and moves with the changing world. Here’s what he wrote further in his blog (which many, including his own countrymen in the UK, who are criticising his call, have not looked at in taking their stand):
It’s 2015. How much longer can pen and paper exams be the only medium we use to test young people? I don’t want to alarm students taking OCR GCSEs or A Levels on 11 May – they will not be asked to use Google – but exams do need to change to complement how education works in the 21st century and the skills that we increasingly expect young people to develop.
Young people grow up using technology to learn yet the format of GCSE and A Level examinations is increasingly disconnected to the variety of learning that goes on. Learning and the assessment of learning is becoming disjointed.
What are exams for? They are not about regurgitating facts. As well as assessing core knowledge of a subject, they are – and should be – about much more than that. We are interested in assessing a young person’s ability to interpret and analyse information, to assess their ability to apply their understanding. Researching on the internet is a key skill in its own right that young people should develop. We do it all the time in our work. (Don’t you want the experienced consultant who is treating you to keep abreast of the latest research on the internet in their field?) Skills of judgement, problem solving and decision making are also important qualities that young people need to develop to flourish and succeed. All these are skills that employers expect to see in the workplace all the time. Exams have to be much more than a memory test.
So the use of internet search engines such as Google in exams is, for me, a no brainer. I am not talking about giving students marks for finding the answer to a simple factual question using Google on a tablet during an exam. Those aren’t the skills I am talking about and access to the internet would not be appropriate for all exams. I am talking about asking students in a GCSE Geography exam for example to write a report about a third world country’s economic development and to use the internet to select appropriate resource materials. Students taking an exam paper on say 200 years of European History might be asked to comment on a new development just outside the period of their study – say voting to leave the EU – and use Google search to research the details, and compare it to a topic they have learnt.
In Maths, we already allow calculators in exams because we assume students have basic knowledge and we want to see if they can apply that. In some situations in maths, such as simulations with large amounts of data or modelling, it is not possible to engage with a realistic model on pen and paper and in the time of a traditional exam. Offloading the processing part on a computer in an exam would allow students to tackle these questions and perhaps to identify a technique that they didn’t even know before they went into the exam room.
As an exam board, we already use technology extensively to support assessment. We scan the papers that students take and then mark them online. We develop resources that relate to our qualifications such as MOOCs, but we don’t fully incorporate the technology of the modern world into GCSE or A Level exams themselves.
Change won’t be easy. There needs to be industry wide agreement on the relaxation of restrictions. The move to internet access needs to be discussed by all parties and carefully piloted. To enable schools to put large cohorts of students into exams with access to the internet, the principle of a staggered timetable of testing would have to be introduced. And an exam with the internet should not benefit the fastest touch typist. But the appropriate and skilled use of the internet is what real education is about and we need to make sure that assessment is not in a world of its own.
So before you jump to demand that smartphones, tablets and laptops become part of writing materials for examinations in Nigeria because the students need to use Google, a step which can potentially destroy our already comatose educational system, reflect on Dawe’s fuller comments and intentions; for, this could be an educational apocalypse.
By MKPE ABANG