Exams and academic year end.

Much discussion has been going on in the media about when school final exams should be held. There have been many requests that exams should be avoided during the festive season. Such issues have not been raised in the past. Now parents demand that their children should be allowed to enjoy the festivities and not be bogged down with exams. Festivals take priority over their children’s education. Festive celebrations come and go every year but their children’s school years are only for a short period of time, especially the public exams. Why all this fuss? Is it because parents are occupied with their own work and social life throughout the year and only reserve time to be spent with the family during festivals?
Schools have received directives to hold final exams right at the end of the school academic year. This was a result of numerous complaints from parents that when final exams are held earlier, their children do not go to school after that. So teachers are very free in school but these parents probably have a difficult time managing their children (or only child!) at home. Parents may be ignorant of a teacher’s duties and responsibilities, but I’m surprised that officials in the Ministry of Education actually entertained these complaints.
As a parent, I would want to know how my child fares in the final exams so that I could plan for him/her to utilize the school holidays to revise and be better prepared for the following year. Presently, exams are being held just before the school holidays start so that teachers can mark the exam scripts and process the marks during the holidays. I suppose students will only know their grades next year. Students won’t have a chance to check their answers until 2 months later. By this time exam scripts may be lost or misplaced during the break. They may not even be marked / marked properly if there is a possibility that the papers won’t be checked!
Teachers are not exactly free after the school final exams. Apart from grading exam papers, year end reports have to be prepared and filed. A large percentage of teachers have to invigilate public exams, such as SPM and STPM that goes on until early December. It is teachers too who grade the public exam scripts, which is done through December. Certain teachers who have special duties like preparing the time-table for the following year; organizing distribution of text books; collecting, processing and distributing PMR results, and so on have to come back during the holidays to perform their respective duties.
Why do students stay away from school after the finals? Is it because school is uninteresting or home is more entertaining? Children have all sorts of gadgets to entertain themselves at home like Play Station, computer games, internet (unsupervised!), Astro, VCD / DVD players (viewing also unsupervised!) and enough money to be splurged at entertainment centers. I wonder who is responsible for this??? Yes of course, teachers!
Many students said they actually looked forward to school after the final exams. This was the fun part of school where they played games, had enjoyable activities and could put their books away for a couple of weeks.
Now, no more class parties…lost tradition. No more last minute advice on how students should spend the holidays or even giving students holiday homework, especially for those who fared badly in the finals. When the bell rings after the last exam paper, it is bye, bye. Indeed a HAPPY HOLIDAY. Have fun!