KSU calls for better quality assurance on exam grading
The university students’ union (KSU) noted its satisfaction that justice was done with 165 candidates who sat for the SEC French in the June Session 2009.
About 165 students who sat for the French secondary education certificate examination in May were erroneously given lower marks than they deserved. The mistake arose after the Matsec Support Unit noted that in the spreadsheet submitted by one of the examiners for 200 of the candidates who sat for this examination, the marks for a question entered in one of the columns were not being counted with the marks of the other questions.
On investigation, it was established that the fields in this column were not being recognised by the software as numeric but as text fields. The marks and spreadsheets of all examinations were rechecked and recalculated.
“Students who do their duty and prepare themselves well for their examinations should feel reassured that they are given their due when results are finally published,” the KSU said.
The union said quality assurance is one of the vital points in the Bologna Process, the European accords that seek to make academic degree standards more comparable and compatible throughout Europe
“Malta has made tremendous efforts to evaluate and implement all points and strategies of the Process, however this critical point needs much attention. This incident is a clear case of the immediate action that should be taken to ensure that good quality assurance systems are put in place,” the KSU said.
The union added that the MATSEC Board should never solely rely on software even though it is purposely structured for the task it is being used for. “Although humans do tend to err, computers have a reputation for unexpectedly fouling up. Having double-checked the results shows that the MATSEC Board is aware of such problems and in this case 165 students benefited from this check.”
KSU augured that such regrettable situations do not repeat themselves, and that all candidates sitting for any level offered by MATSEC go with their minds at rest that their efforts will not be penalised by defective software.
“MATSEC’s immediate reaction to the problem is highly laudable and we are sure that all those that have improved their mark in French will thank those hardworking MATSEC staff who followed up the situation and corrected it.”
Any comments?
If you wish your comments to be published in our Letters pages please click button below. Please write a contact number and a postal address where you may be contacted.
Download front page in pdf file format
All the interviews from Reporter on MaltaToday's YouTube channel.
