Examination History

I've been reading a recently-published book on the history of local examinations from 1891 to 2007. It is fascinating to know we've had these test regimes in place for so long; the Ordinary and Advanced Level examinations have been around since 1971 and 1975 respectively. During the Second World War, interned educators actually conducted ersatz Cambridge exams in the POW quarters, eventually getting them certified as the equivalent of the real thing, taken under real duress.

It is, yes, a fascinating narrative. But at the end of this slim volume, I was still no closer to understanding what the links between examinations, state policy and education really were. It is clear that stuff was being tested, at first in subject groups and then in individual disciplines. It is clear that examinations in four languages eventually became an examination largely in English. It is all very clear, that this testing was meant to evaluate certain human functions and the level of learning attained.

But the book never clearly answers whether the examinations were valid or reliable with respect to the higher level skills allegedly being the target of the examination machine. In fact, Chapter 6 deals with the idea of the examinations as a response to the challenges of a rapidly changing and globalising world. It is a complete failure of a chapter, in the sense that it never rises to attempt an answer to the issue of whether the examinations were a good response. It only asserts things like 'thinking skills were infused in the curriculum', which seems to imply that before the last few years, the curriculum had no necessity for thought.

What a disappointment. Then again, should I have expected more?