Entrance Examinations Marking Woes @ NotCliche

Everyone should know what Entrance Examinations are about, it’s pretty self-explained. Of course, knowing that Japan has a series of entrance exams to see if a student could get into higher education in another school, it’s no doubt that these examinations are extremely important.

The most recent Entrance Examinations held at the Hyogo Prefecture, which about 145 High Schools participate in, had a major marking error, that affected more than 120 High Schools, and about 1,447 students in total.

In light of this issue, a committee compromised of parents, teachers and experts will be formed to prevent such an occurrence. The Hyogo Board of Education have also decided to review the examination papers of about 130,000 students from the previous years, and can date back to 2004.

The marking error was only realized when a student (or applicant in a sense) who has applied for a High School asked the school to disclose the answers.

What is so interesting is that, out of the 145 High Schools that was participating, 11 schools didn’t conduct a written test, and out of the schools that conducted written tests, 122 was found to have the errors. The error in the marking has also been reflected in all the subjects that the students have taken.

Props to that particular student that asked to the school to review the answers. If I’ve taken any, and failed the examinations, I probably wouldn’t care much, except to try again next time.

Judging from this, maybe schools will consider moving away from the written tests.

Since the review of the papers will be checked through 5 years worth of students, I do wonder what will happen to those that actually passed onto Higher Education via that little error, especially those that are currently studying in those schools now.

Source: Daily Yomiuri Online.

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