04 June 2008
Dubai: Principals at public schools believe that the average results for grade 12 pupils this year have dropped since last year especially in the arts section.
"The results for the 'Tawjeehi' are ok but they are way below those from last year. I think we are heading towards chaos with the new system as it is not implemented properly nor is it an accurate measure of the students' academic skills," said Mohammad Hassan, Principal of Mohammad Bin Rashid Public school for secondary education in Dubai.
The Ministry of Education (MOE) changed the decade long structure of finals for grade 12 students into a two-term based examination that was intended to ease the pressure on students.
The earlier structure required pupils to take exams at the end of the academic year by testing them on the entire material for each subject. Another principal said that results in the science stream are slightly less in comparison to last year but the literature stream was fine. She added that one of her female students achieved a 99 per cent result while it was only around 97 per cent in the science stream.
According to statistics provided by the Ministry of Education, the highest average in both the science and arts section are 99.8 and 99.4 per cent respectively. However according to principals, the average grade for this year in the arts section in much lower than last year
The percentage of pupils passing this year in most of the 15 secondary schools in Dubai ranges between 84-87 per cent in the science stream, while it is around 75 per cent for the Arts section.
The percentage of pupils in the UAE achieving a passing grade of 60 per cent or above in all subjects is 83.87 per cent in the science section and 69.43 per cent in the Arts section in public schools. However, it is 83.87 per cent in the science section and it has gone up to 81.10 per cent in the Arts section for private Arabic schools.
"Theoretically the new system is very beneficial but it's not implemented to carry out its main objectives and I don't know who is to blame. The teachers still do not know how to apply it properly. It has been two years now and students still plagiarise their reports from the internet," said Humaid Yousuf, a grade 12 pupil in a public school in Ajman, who achieved an average of 93.
"The overall percentage of passing has dropped since the passing grade was raised to 60 per cent. At the same time the CEPA [English assessment tests] really damaged students' grades by as much as 50 per cent," said Ali Marallah, Assistant principal of Safia public school for secondary education.
Under the old system, the passing grade was 40 per cent, which has now been raised to 60 per cent.
A senior official at the Ministry of Education said that the new system does not only evaluate pupils on their performance in exams but also includes course work, which counts for 50 per cent of their total average.
Toppers:
Science section
Ahmad Al Bakri from Egypt, 99.8%
Khalid Sawalha from Jordan, 99.8%
Hiba Al Safi from Iraq, 99.8%
Arts section
Asma Hassan without official documents, 99.4%
Marwa Abdul Wase'a from UAE, 99.4%
By Siham Al Najami
Gulf News 2008. All rights reserved.
