An educational expert proposes issuing a decision banning first-week exams
Private schools receive students with “exams back from vacation”
Thousands of school students with different curricula joined their studies after returning from winter break.
Photography: Ahmed Arditi
Dr. Salih Al-Jarmi: “Exams for the first week of school attendance are a disturbing phenomenon, which is not commensurate with educational and teaching methods that target the interest of students.”
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Thousands of students from public and private schools in Abu Dhabi, with their various curricula (ministerial, British and American), attended yesterday, with the start of the second semester of the current academic year for all grades, from kindergarten to twelfth, after returning from the three-week winter break. Where schools recorded (almost complete) attendance rates, while other schools witnessed medium absence rates for some students who and their families celebrated New Year's Day outside the country.
And private schools sent messages to the parents of their students via e-mail or WhatsApp groups, days before the start of the second semester, to notify them of directing their children to prepare for “evaluative” exams in a number of subjects, which will be conducted from today (the second day of school). ), calling on students to study, and to conduct revisions on the curricula before attending the study.
These messages sparked widespread anger and resentment among parents and families of students, as they told Emirates Today that it disturbed the family's celebrations of welcoming the new year, and was a reason for students not enjoying their right to winter leave, especially since the majority of students who received these messages spent the last week of Vacation in studying and reviewing curricula.
The students’ families stated that there was no reason to receive students with exams in the first days of returning from vacation, and that it would have been better for everyone to postpone these assessment exams to the second week of the new semester, especially since these exams are “routine” to measure the level of students and their abilities to perform. Understanding and assimilation.
While the educational expert, Dr. Saleh Muhammad Al-Jarmi, described the exams for the first week of school attendance as a "disturbing phenomenon", stressing that some schools continue to follow this system, which is not commensurate with the educational and teaching methods that target the interest of students.
Al-Jarmi told Emirates Today: “This is not the first time that parents and students, whether in schools or universities, have complained that classes start with unjustified assessment exams, and I have often spoken with school officials about the futility of these exams at these times. Its harm to students is more than its benefit, and the same applies to families.
He added, “If we conduct a scientific comparison between the benefits and harms of these pre-emptive exams, we will find that their negative effects include three aspects. By rooting in the idea that school and education are punitive means that a student cannot like, while the last aspect is social, since such letters and exams may change family plans for spending vacations between school seasons, which may create social problems among family members, which is not Education could be the cause of it.
Al-Jarmi called on the Ministry of Education and the Department of Education and Knowledge to issue decisions that prevent schools from conducting any exams for students in the first week of school attendance, suggesting that this week be devoted to review and introducing students to the school atmosphere, provided that these exams begin from the second week.
For its part, the Department of Education and Knowledge in Abu Dhabi confirmed that it has set binding parameters for all schools in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, with regard to the organization and mechanisms of examinations, tests and evaluation, explaining that each school is concerned with preparing its own evaluation policies, implementing them and working to review them periodically.
The department indicated, in the "Private Schools Policies Guide", that the evaluation policies include details on how teachers assess the level of students' progress through continuous evaluation, official tests and exams, and these policies also include details on how teachers use the results of this evaluation to support the education process. learning and increase their effectiveness.
The guide notes that a school that participates in external performance evaluation tests, in accordance with the instructions and directives of the Council, may not change the curriculum approved by the Council, in order to comply with the requirements of the aforementioned tests. in one academic year.
• Students' families: There was no reason to receive students with exams in the first days of returning from vacation.
• Schools recorded attendance rates that are almost complete, and other absence rates for students who and their families celebrated New Year's Eve outside the country.
3 tips for “back to school”
The Al Ain University blog published a study on the best ways to quickly adapt to returning to school, after long vacations, during which it gave three tips to students to enter the study atmosphere again, the first of which is the necessity of “psychological preparation”, by preparing the student to leave the habits that he used to follow during the vacation period , such as “regulating bedtime, browsing study materials quickly, practicing daily reading (at least an hour every day), setting a pre-scheduling to organize school days.According to the study, the second advice was represented in “healthy and physical preparation”, by motivating the student to follow a healthy diet to treat the wrong eating habits that he fell into during the holidays, such as eating fast food and ready-made desserts, while the last advice focused on “preparing to study”, as She pointed out the importance of arranging papers, notes, and books before starting the study, as it helps 70% to complete the time, collect the largest amount of information and understanding, set goals for revision or study, and test the student for himself by recalling the information he read and classifying it in his own way.
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