Let's not scrap school examinations

LETTER | The issue of scrapping examinations was highlighted again by the education minister. Parents were mentioned as if parents are the ones who are going for the exams.

Maybe the best thing for us and our children is to stop complaining about exams being stressful because stress is a part of life. If we cannot withstand and face the stress that comes with exams, then we will definitely be poor in character- building.

We might as well also call off studying and learning in schools as it will be a waste of time, energy and money.

Children are said to be complaining of exams and parents are so scared that their children might not do well in examinations, tests or assessments.

In my opinion, all we need to do is attend school, learn the best we can and, of course, when facing exams, every learner needs to do revision.

Even in our Dewan Rakyat, our ministers-cum-lawmakers need to understand the pressure of revision before answering questions in the House.

Revision is important. One has to revise to be prepared to answer questions thrown.

So pressures, stress and hard work are a part of people's lives. Very few people succeed in what they want to do without preparing as well as they can and working hard.

Testing in schools has been the subject of great debate, with recent figures revealing half of primary school pupils and a third of parents suffer stress and anxiety over school tests.

Though many have mentioned that we need to prepare children for life, not just for exams I still think we still need "assessments" in our holistic life.

Rather than abolishing exams, we should instead be asking what mix of assessment tasks are most appropriate for each subject. Where might exams fit in? And what are their benefits?

Exams are necessary for schools and colleges to find out the real skills, talents and knowledge of students.

Without conducting exams and tests, students won't concentrate on their studies or learn their lessons properly.

Consider students who are interested in getting good marks in an exam and study hard to achieve it - without an exam, there is no chance to express their knowledge and skills.

Exams are a way to express our real knowledge and ability in the written form. They teach us a lot of things and give training to various things like punctuality, writing skills, timing sense, expressing our thoughts and opinions and so on.

Exams don’t just provide a targeted opportunity for students to demonstrate what they know: they also have the power to enhance what students know.

Let’s not scrap examinations but continue with these assessments.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.