Is Malaysia’s Examination Grading System Flawed?

 

Malaysia's SPM grading system is doing something grotesque: it puts a student who scored 100 in mathematics and a student who scored 75 in the same "excellent" box. Then all our students are brilliant. 

This is the 𝗵𝘂𝗺𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲, the coddling of mediocrity, and the systematic burial of truth. And the destruction of a future generation. (This article is an excerpt of a Facebook post by IronPen. The views and information expressed here have not been verified independently)

 

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standardized_test 

SPM uses a norm-referenced system. Your grade doesn't depend on what you scored. It depends on how you ranked against everyone else. If a student practices mathematics every single day, relentlessly, obsessively, until he can solve every problem perfectly—until he scores 100—he gets an A+. If another student barely scrapes by, scores 75, but happens to be in a cohort where the average is low enough, he also gets an A+. The system declares them equal. This is not a glitch. This is the design. 

The Ministry of Education calls it "standard-setting." It calls it "robust and professional." It points to the UK, the US, Australia, and Singapore and says, "They do this too." 

Singapore's Ministry of Education has stated explicitly: national examinations in Singapore 𝗱𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁 use bell curve grading. Every national exam—PSLE, O-Level, A-Level—is criterion-referenced. Your grade reflects your absolute mastery of the subject. It does not depend on how your peers performed. 

A Singaporean student who scores 100 gets the top grade because he mastered the material. A student who scores 75 gets a different grade because he mastered less. The system tells the truth. 

The UK does not use a fixed bell curve either. Grade boundaries are set after marking, using a combination of statistical data and expert examiner judgment. The goal is to ensure that it is "no harder or easier to achieve a given grade in one year than another." But here's the critical difference: the 𝗨𝗞 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗵𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀.. Students and parents can see exactly what raw mark was needed for each grade. 

𝗠𝗮𝗹𝗮𝘆𝘀𝗶𝗮 𝗱𝗼𝗲𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗽𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝘀𝗵 𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗯𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀. SPM grade boundaries are adjusted based on cohort performance but are not made public. Students and teachers are left "in the dark."

Why would a system be designed to hide declining performance? There are only a few possible answers:

 

1.      -To protect the feelings of underperforming groups? It wants everyone to feel "𝗴𝗼𝗼𝗱 𝗲𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵."

 

2.  -To protect the reputation of the education system. If grades honestly reflected the decline in mathematical mastery, the Ministry would have to explain why. The cohort system provides plausible deniability.

 

3.      -Both.

But the deepest damage is not what the system hides about the weak. It's what it does to the strong. Consider the student who scores 100 in mathematics. He practices every day. He solves problems until his fingers ache. He achieves perfection. Now consider the student who scores 75. He did enough. He passed. He is not mediocre, but he is not exceptional. The system gives them the same grade. 

Malaysian students who believe their A's in SPM Mathematics mean they are good at mathematics will enter university, enter the workforce, and discover that they cannot solve problems they have never seen before. They will struggle in STEM fields. They will be outperformed by peers from countries with more honest assessment systems. Meanwhile, the international community will continue to look at Malaysia's PISA scores—not its SPM results—when assessing the quality of its education system. 

The Ministry of Education can defend its "robust and professional" methodology all it wants. But when SPM says "excellent" and PISA says "below average," only one of them is telling the truth. And you know which one! 

Reference:

Facebook post by IronPen