Breaking paradigms in education

Published in El Pais, 14 April 2021.

After already a year and a half as a teacher at Radboud University in the Netherlands I want to share my experience in the way of examining students. The objective, as everywhere, is to distinguish the students who managed to learn the content of the course from those who did not. But the way it is evaluated is different:

1. The theoretical and practical part is evaluated.
2. All teachers of the subject depend on an exam prepared by the head of department. Therefore, teachers must manage to transmit the content of the subject so that students can answer well the exam questions that even the teachers themselves do not know. This promotes quality in the transmission of knowledge.
3. The exams have an answer sheet that will be used by those in charge of checking the exams. Teachers cannot subjectively help anyone.
4. The exams are prepared with an education committee that verifies that the questions are understandable, the time is according, the level of difficulty is from low to high. With this, it will be possible to distinguish students who acquired a basic, medium or superior knowledge.
5. This committee will also receive a report of the results and written complaints from the students, if any. And it is verified if the exam was well done or needs to be adjusted.
6. Due to COVID-19, the exams are now administered by a home computer that verifies that the room is empty, that the student does not activate other pages, stops writing their exam, etc. In such a way that subjectivity in the evaluation is reduced.
7. In the end, if the student fails it must be due to their merit of not having prepared their subject and not because of the teaching factor. The content of the subject, the exam, and the way of reviewing it are better controlled as factors that are evaluated.
8. Students who have specific complaints will not be able to go against the teacher but focus on demonstrating that their response was better than that prepared by an education committee.

I’m a fan of the columns of Jordán Segovia Gareca, columnist for El País. I think we both agree that Bolivian education must break paradigms. Exams is one of them. Many aspects cannot be changed in education because teachers do not want to advance at the international pace.