Continuous assessment may be better than final exams

The current trend in education is to move away from traditional exams and instead have a continuous assessment over the school year. What do you think of this trend?

Solution

The contemporary system of imparting literary skills is now shifting to regular assessments rather than conducting examinations. In my view, there are several flaws with this approach to the evaluation of students’ academic progress.

First of all, in the continuous assessment system, the learning periods or spans are too short. For example, in most colleges and universities in English-speaking countries, there is a twelve-week semester system. Students are expected to learn the skills and concepts within those twelve weeks and apply them in their assessments. It is worth noting that not everyone is a fast-paced learner. Some students will not be able to cope with learning and applications at the same time. Thus, this evaluation system will help only students who are quick learners and hard workers. Students who procrastinate may not be the real beneficiary of this innovative assessment technique.

On the other hand, there are also some benefits to continuous evaluation. Regular assessments help educators to track the progress of pupils. If someone is showing weakness or lag in their studies, they can devise some personalised solutions for such weak students. This approach is much better than waiting for a whole year for term-end examinations. Moreover, students will not be stressed during the last few days prior to the exam if they have already learned and understood concepts following the continuous assessment.

To sum up, the approach to regularly conducting assessments is the right move to track the overall progress and growth of students’ academic learning. However, some students may be unable to adjust to this assessment method. Nevertheless, a hybrid evaluation system may serve the needs of educators and students in the future.