Even the befuddled educators themselves! But the poison will soon drain out after a few weeks and then we will start accumulating the anger bundles for the next set of results. Usually this gathers momentum when PSLE results are out, JC pushes that a notch higher and the BGCSE is the culmination of that pent-up anger. When the BGCSE results are released, people’s tongue blades would be replaced with even sharper ones. The whole nation seems to have just completed a Basic Course In Admonishing Education Officials.
Should the government consider making this a week of mourning? I mean at this rate, the nation cannot afford this yearly haemorrhaging. I envisage the national mourning week as a week of intense prayers with ministers from mainline churches, fire churches, churches that worship through dancing and unregistered churches. We need to exorcise the ghosts of poor exam performance. Picture a pastor delivering an eulogy that goes like ‘Friends, family, fellow exam-takers... we are gathered here today to mourn the passing of our children’s academic hopes and dreams. They were taken too soon, snatched away by the cruel hand of multiple-choice questions and essays.’ When you look at the results, it seems many candidates had decided to give the ‘random guessing’ technique a thorough scientific trial. The results are further proof that exams are biased against people who love sleep. It’s a conspiracy basically. But exams provide valuable lessons - lessons like ‘Maybe I should have studied’ or ‘caffeine alone is not a substitute for knowledge’. There’s a silver lining to this though.
Exam results have a way of cleaning the streets and malls of errant juveniles. They don’t want to be answering questions about their results if they didn’t do so well. Therefore, going to a mall makes you fodder for the inquisitive lot. Many have always danced along the knife-edge of risk but now the exam have made the blade sharper, the chasm below unforgiving. At this moment, many parents are now practising the ‘But he tried’ ad lib and now to back it up with a thousand justifications. It is a very difficult time for the ‘But he tried’ parents because basically they are now playing the PR role in addition to being parents – the latter a very tricky vocation on its own. Now there is a new minister who is responsible for explaining why results are as crappy as they are. At this moment, the minister is gathering all manner of ammunition to tell the populace the importance of patience and taking stuff on the chin. Politics work in very interesting ways. The new minister now has to pretend that the mess is his/her responsibility and next week when Parliament resume,s she will have her hands full trying to explain how next year will be better since there’s now a new sheriff in town. Brace yourself for statements like ‘The previous minister was trying to test the 'chaos theory' of education.
They succeeded. A little too well.’ And ‘On the bright side, our students are now experts in 'creative problem-solving' – specifically, how to find a textbook when there are none!’ (For comments, feedback and insults email [email protected]) Thulaganyo Jankey is a Rapporteur and training consultant who runs his own training consultancy that provides training in BQA- accredited courses. His other services include registering consultancies with BQA and developing training courses. Contact him on 74447920 or email [email protected]
