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Although the results of the assessment tests in digital format, which took place in May 2023, have not yet been made public, schools are also preparing the 9th year exams in digital format. With one difference: if the assessment tests have no weight in the students' classification, the national exams in the 9th year count towards the grade. Teachers warn that schools are not prepared and parents promise to be attentive.
Ana Paula Frederico is a mathematics teacher in the 3rd cycle of Basic Education. These days, despite the calendar year being in its early days, in her thoughts and those of her 9th year students at Escola Secundária Sebastião da Gama, in Setúbal, it is already the last days of the school year, which is now entering its second half. Ana Paula is already preparing students for the 9th year national exams, which take place in June, count towards the classification and will be taken this year for the first time in digital format. A factor that adds anxiety to teachers and students.
“Schools are not prepared to carry out these tests in digital format. There are flaws in the Ministry of Education's apps. The internet is very slow. Students have to constantly restart their computers, losing everything they have already accomplished. Especially good students experience unnecessary anxiety”, summarizes the teacher.
The opinion is supported by the president of the board of directors of the National Association of Computer Teachers (ANPRI). Fernanda Ledesma continues the list of factors that lead her to believe that the conditions are not met to implement this option in June this year. “The equipment in most classrooms is obsolete, they are still the computers that arrived at schools in 2009, as part of the Education Technological Plan. As for the equipment in the Digital School Kit of the Digital Transition Plan, not all students have it and many of these Kits are broken. The number of damaged kits increases with each passing day and the repair time is too long”, she highlights.
In conversation with CNN Portugal, Fernanda Ledesma adds that the quality of the Internet is very poor and that people are trying to make omelettes without cooks: “the bandwidth available is too little for so many students to access the Internet simultaneously. (…) Even if an offline server were chosen, there are still no IT technicians in most schools to ensure support for this process”.
“These processes cannot be carried out relying on the goodwill and availability of IT teachers, who also have their own classes to teach” , he complains.
“We remember that the IT group was one of the first to feel the lack of teachers. It is a group where there are still many hours to be allocated and where many were hired through school offers, without professional qualifications for teaching”, adds Cristina Mota, spokesperson for the civic teachers' movement Missão Escola Pública.
All the same… but little
IAVE – Institute for Educational Assessment predicts that all assessments in paper format will end in 2025. The process will be gradual: this year, the 9th year final exams will be taken on computers and, next year, it will be The 12th year exams are also expected to no longer be taken on paper and with a pen.
Last school year, a first step was taken in this direction. The assessment tests for the 2nd, 5th and 8th years were carried out electronically. The tests took place in May 2023 and, to date, the results have not yet been made public. Furthermore, the scenario in which they took place, with many students prevented from taking exams due to teacher strikes, leaves those who are in schools every day with doubts as to whether they can serve as an example for the future.
Fernanda Ledesma fears that equality between students will be harmed in this form of assessment. If many students do not have access to a computer of sufficient quality to prepare and take the tests, there are still those who do not even have access to the necessary basic knowledge. “Although there is an ICT subject from the 5th to the 9th year, the time allocated in most schools does not allow the expected essential learning to be consolidated. Regarding the first cycle, the integration of technologies depends on the sensitivity and skills of teachers, as well as the conditions existing in each school. There are teachers who make a balanced pedagogical integration of technologies in the classroom and others who rarely use them, so the preparation of students will be different”, says the person in charge.
“It is a test with a weight of 30% in the assessment, when the student is not prepared for these circumstances. Furthermore, there are schools with implemented projects that do not even provide for assessment tests. These students will not be on equal terms with their other colleagues” , adds Cristina Mota.
The spokesperson for the civic movement Missão Escola Pública also points out that there is no way to inspect students' computers to ensure that there is no external help. “In manual tests, in Mathematics, for example, teachers will check the calculating machines. Who on the day of the test is going to make sure that students are taking the tests on an equal footing?”, she asks.
Elements impossible to evaluate
Ana Paula Frederico continues with the preparation of students, but still without understanding how it will be possible to evaluate certain contents of a subject such as Mathematics in electronic form. “I assume that in digital format, the tests are mainly multiple choice, true or false, selection. And in our discipline, that’s not enough. Students have to make diagrams, they have to make tables... In an open question, even if the final result is not correct, the corrector teacher can get some quotes from the reasoning. In multiple choice tests, you are either right or wrong. Even if schools had the conditions, in mathematics, I don’t think it would be beneficial”, she considers.
And if the digital format, if the tests are in fact multiple choice and selection as expected, does not allow the ability to reason or create diagrams and tables of Mathematics students to be assessed, it also does not allow to certify issues such as the absence of errors. spelling or grammar in Portuguese subjects.
“The implementation of this form of evaluation cannot in any way occur in the way it is occurring. It's like starting a house from the roof. Without the foundations", summarizes Cristina Mota, spokesperson for Missão Escola Pública .
CONFAP (National Confederation of Parents' Associations) says it does not yet have a defined position on the topic. Mariana Carvalho, president of CONFAP, says they are waiting for the results of last academic year's assessment tests to be released to take a position. The person responsible tells CNN Portugal that CONFAP will “request a meeting with IAVE” to discuss the matter.
CNN Portugal questioned the Ministry of Education, through an email sent on November 7, to find out how the 9th grade national exams are being prepared in digital format and whether schools are being provided with material and human resources necessary to ensure equality and equity among students. So far, we have not yet received a response.