The recent contributions of several of your readers, which have referred to the MATSEC Review Report, have greatly helped to stimulate public discussion about some of the issues covered by this report.

As an independent international contributor to this report, I firmly believe that public consultation and debate are urgently needed to address some of the important issues raised in this report. The future of MATSEC's exams clearly has serious consequences for Maltese citizens, employers and all who care about enhancing the educational opportunities of young people in Malta.

As well as the points highlighted by your letter writers, the MATSEC Review Report has important things to say about the need to reform MATSEC examination syllabi and the curriculum currently being taught in Maltese schools. It also contains important recommendations about extending the role of teachers in assessing their own students, and in helping MATSEC to improve examination syllabuses and papers.

There are also some key recommendations for strengthening and sustaining the MATSEC Support Unit, in the coming years to ensure that MATSEC's assessment practices are up to date and effective.

Mr Joseph Muscat (The Sunday Times, January 8) and Ms Isabelle Gatt (January 1) refer to specific aspects of my contribution to the MATSEC Review. I fully agree with Mr Muscat's desire to try to reduce the emphasis on selection and segregation in Maltese schools. Like him I think that this is already a key system-wide issue, which needs to be addressed if all students are to gain more from their school experiences.

However I don't agree with his suggestion that SEC examinations would be improved by just having a single exam paper for each subject. Such a paper would need to achieve the impossible task of providing a fair assessment of all aspects of each subject in a way which is accessible for students with greatly differing levels of achievement.

I have never seen such a strategy work anywhere else in the world and there is no reason to believe that it is the best way forward in Malta.

The most effective curriculum-related educational assessment systems employ a variety of assessment techniques to give all children a chance to reveal their achievements across the range of areas covered in each subject.

For example, in the GCSE examination in the UK, which was introduced to end the unhelpful divide between O-level and CSE examinations, most subjects have several assessment element, including at least one paper that is offered as two or more differentiated papers (just like the SEC Papers IIA & IIB - and counter to what Mr Muscat seems to believe).

I accept that offering two 'differentiated' versions of an examination paper isn't an ideal approach, but in many cases it seems to be a reasonable compromise solution, especially if combined with some common assessment elements of the type Mr Muscat favours.

If anything, I think that MATSEC should be extending its range of assessment techniques (for example, by including more teacher assessments) rather than narrowing everything down to a single 'one-shot examination paper'.

Also, if there are problems with students being entered inappropriately for SEC Paper IIA or IIB, that is something to rectify through assisting students, parents and teachers to make better choices about which paper individual students should attempt, rather than abandoning this approach altogether.

Ms Gatt has extended her plea for MATSEC to change the regulation about MATSEC matriculation students with less than 40 points being required to sit all six individual matriculation elements again, if they want to try to improve their points tally. This, I agree, is something that she needs to persuade MATSEC about, rather than myself.

However I do hold a different view as I do not see the current regulation as 'writing off' such students, or as necessarily being 'unjust'. Assessment systems almost always involve the setting of thresholds and cut-off points or marks. Those who fall just above or below such points generally receive very different outcomes, and that is a necessary consequence of marking and grading systems.

This regulation is, for example, very like the one for the driving test, where if you make too many mistakes in one test you are required to retake the whole test rather than just the parts you failed last time. Such an approach isn't 'unjust' - it is simply a consequence of the way that the standard for passing has been defined by those responsible for setting it.

In this case the matriculation certificate has been designed to accredit those able to demonstrate an overall level of performance across a balanced curriculum, rather than simply within individual subjects, and so students are generally expected to be able to show their overall potential in all six subjects at one sitting of the examination.

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