Exam-itis

And how to cure it

The disease

I enjoyed my time at school, university, and grad-school. I enjoyed learning, and I met many friends and had many memorable experiences.

Exams, I didn’t enjoy particularly. I was generally quite good at “tests”, and so I didn’t actually hate them. But I didn’t like them either. They seemed a necessary evil that punctuated an otherwise good time.

They often felt unfair. Many classmates who were more intelligent and creative than me had worse grades. The converse was also true. Some folks who didn’t seem particularly bright students got better grades than I did.

After starting work, I realised what had “felt” unfair, was unfair for real. In my profession at least, some of the most successful had ordinary exam records. And many with excellent records had average careers.

…

Research has proved time and time again that exams are, at best, a poor measure of future professional or academic success.

Exams are also competitive and stressful. Students often supplement regular classes with many rounds of private tuition. Recently, I met a student who had taken three tuition classes per subject for each of his three A. Level subjects. During his last year at school, he averaged three hours of sleep a night.

Worst of all, exams create contradictory incentives. At university, my batch-mates picked easy subjects that would guarantee them A+s. As opposed to choosing a hard subject, that might be more interesting or useful.

Hence, exams fail in all their capacities. They are, at best, poor measurements. They create bad incentives. All this at the cost of unnecessary stress and competition.

The cause

But why do exams exist in the first place?

The first and primary reason is that people are either unwilling or unable to choose.

For example, many tech companies don’t know how to hire a good software engineer (SWE). Because they don’t know what a good SWE looks like. So they rely on the candidates A. Level results, or university GPA. They are unable to choose themselves, so they revert to exam results.

Universities often have a different problem. Many academics have a good sense of what makes a good undergraduate or grad student. But if they choose new entrants based on these criteria, they might face charges of bias or corruption. Hence, unwilling to choose, they default to exam results.

A second reason is historical.

Sri Lanka’s educational system has its roots in the British order. The goal was to provide the sort of templated individual who could administer the vast Empire. Each graduate, from Toronto to Colombo, to Auckland was expected to do the same kind of things.

This same 200-year educational system builds around on competitive exams. Back then, it worked because the goal was simple. Produce a template civil servant. Today, we expect it to churn out as diverse individuals as possible. From computer scientists to micro-biologists to musicians and historians. What worked then, doesn’t work now.

The third reason is financial. Exams are huge cash cows.

Public organisations conduct some exams. But most standardised tests, university accreditations, and all manner of degrees, diplomas, and certificates are granted by for-profit companies. Exam shops. Maximising shareholder value consists of fleecing poor students. Flogging off bogus degree certificates. They lobby governments and educational institutions to keep their qualifications relevant.

The cure

Most people see exams as a means to a brighter economic future. Hence, employers must deal the first blow to exams. They should align their recruiting with factors that benefit their bottom line, not some arbitrary grade. Tech companies (for example) should get a better understanding of what a good SWE looks like. Then, hire those people. The best tech companies already do this. But others must also follow.

Universities should be truer to what makes a good undergraduate or post-graduate. They should move away from depending on one number excreted by an outdated system. A fairer system would consider exams as a necessary qualifier, not a sufficient one. Personality, experience, and knowledge of a broader field of subjects should factor. With a limited number of university vacancies, randomness is a better and fairer filter than most exams. In Sri Lanka, all citizens pay for free education. So why restrict higher education to those who are good at exams? Why not distribute vacancies among students who meet some basic bar by lottery?

Finally, the tyranny of exam granting shops should end. While educational debt is a growing problem, most exam shops have no incentive to prove that their diplomas are useful. A solution to this problem is to defer exam fees until after employment commences. If a graduate of a diploma in computing cannot be employed as a programmer (say), then the shop forgoes its fees.

Concluding thoughts

For clarity, I’ve simplified a very complex problem. Its whole cannot be solved over-night. Also, some parts of the problem are more solvable than others. It is easier for a tech company hiring software engineers to overrule test scores than it is for a hospital hiring doctors.

But the principle is simple: It is time we see exams for what they are: a disease. There is a cure. But it is overdue.