No exam up to Class III from 2020

The government is going to abolish the examination-based assessment of student performances and to introduce the continuous assessment method up to Class III from next year, said officials. 
Under the continuous assessment method, the performance of the students will be assessed round the year through different classroom-based activities. 
The Ministry of Primary and Mass Education has already formed a technical committee with Golam Md Hasibul Alam, additional secretary (administration) of the ministry, as the convener of the committee, which is scheduled to submit by May 13 its recommendations on how the assessment will be carried out. 
‘This year we will finalise the method after holding workshops at local, regional and national levels and from 2020 we will abolish the examination-based system from Class I to Class III,’ the ministry’s secretary Md Akram-Al-Hossain told New Age recently. 
On March 13 this year Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at the inauguration of National Primary Education Week 2019 commented that examinations were creating mental pressure on the students and this system should be changed, he mentioned. 
The continuous assessment process will continue round the year, the secretary added. 
Currently, the exam-based summative method is followed in the country’s 65,593 government primary schools where around 1.4 crore students are enrolled. Under the summative assessment method, student performance is evaluated through a formal examination every four months while under the continuous assessment method the performance will be evaluated using different strategies as to what the students know, understand or can do, said officials. 
On April 17, a meeting was held at the Primary and Mass Education ministry office in the secretariat in this regard with the ministry’s secretary in the chair, where he emphasised abolishing the current examination-based assessment up to Class III and introducing the continuous assessment method in which classrooms will be the main place for learning. 
He said that the performance of the students should be assessed on a continuous basis while the teachers should analyse and assess regularly what the students are learning, reading, comparing, or can understand from the lessons. 
The weak students would be identified and be given special attention in this method, he added. 
Other officials of the ministry who attended the meeting said that training would be necessary to improve the quality of teachers and the parents should be made aware about the continuous assessment for this method to work effectively. 
In the 1990s, when the continuous assessment method was being practiced in selected educational institutions under the education ministry, including primary schools attached to high schools, madrassahs and English medium schools, they followed not this method but the existing examination-based assessment, they noted.
It is difficult to implement any method if two different methods are in practice, they observed. 
They emphasised the implementation of the same assessment method in all schools and the identification of the challenges in implementing the method under a time-bound action plan. 
Experts who attended the meeting recommended assistance from the media for making people aware, assistance from prominent educationists for their inputs, informing parents about their children’s performance at regular intervals and launching of the new assessment method first as a pilot project.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net