Updated - Ministry to tackle delays in revision of Matsec papers
Updated 4.45 p.m. - The Ministry of Education said this afternoon that it was unacceptable that the revision of Matsec exam papers was completed after resits were held, and it would be doing its best to avoid such a situation.
The ministry was reacting to a story carried in The Times today.
The ministry said it was unacceptable that there were undue delays or that the outcome of revision of papers was known after the resits.
The government wanted to ensure that students were able to advance in their studies, and they should enjoy every opportunity to do better in their exams, the ministry said. The revision of papers enabled them to do that, by seeing where they would have done badly, it added.
"The Matsec Board, together with the ministry will see how, despite logistical problems cause by an increase in the number of revision of paper requests, it can ensure that the students are given an explanation for their results before the resits," the ministry said.
In a separate statement, the PN also expressed its concern and said the situation as reported in The Times was unacceptable and should not be repeated.
PARENT'S COMPLAINT
This morning, The Times reported how an irate mother had taken the Matsec board to task for failing to send her daughter's O level revision of paper report before her resit exams.
"The report gives feedback on where the student went wrong.
"Had it arrived before the exam, the students could see where they went wrong and focus on the necessary improvement. Getting the report after the resit is of little use," Theresa Camilleri said.
Her daughter received the report of her biology O level exam on Thursday, just after sitting for Paper One of the resit and only an hour before she sat for Paper Two.
Meanwhile she is still waiting for the revision of paper of the Maltese exam, the resit of which was held on Wednesday. Ms Camilleri paid €34 for each revision of paper, more than double the fee for the examinations themselves.
"I paid money for nothing," she said, adding the report should have been received days before the exams.
Another problem with the late feedback is that, should a student's grades be upgraded from a fail to a pass, s/he could have ended up sitting for a resit before finding out.
"I would have been very angry if that happened. Think about it, we pay lots of money for private lessons and my daughter has spent the past three weeks at home studying.
"They need to keep in mind that these are 15-year-olds and this sort of system puts them off furthering their studies."
An Education Ministry spokesman said that all students whose marks were upgraded were notified by telephone before the resit exams took place.
"Moreover, the reports for most subjects have been sent by post and reached their destination prior to the start of resits too."
TESTERS 'PUSHED TO THE LIMIT'
However, the spokesman added, some reports for certain subjects had yet to be sent.
He said the Matsec board did its utmost to ensure timely reports, pushing the chosen examiners "to the limit".
"One has to acknowledge that time is tight and the board declares in the circular sent to all candidates with their result slips: 'Please note that, although Matsec does its utmost to expedite this exercise, it cannot be guaranteed that these reports will reach the candidates before the September session'."
But Ms Camilleri does not accept this explanation.
"If you're going to offer the service, either do it properly or not at all. Otherwise, you are saying that you are doing it for the money," she said.
The results were out by mid-July, meaning there was more than a month and a half to correct the exams in a timely way.
By comparison, she said, the original O level exams were held until early June and the results were out by mid-July, even though there were many more papers to mark.
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Anthony Grech
Sep 11th 2012, 10:32
L-ewwel jisirqulna l-bettieh, imbghad nibnu l-gharix.
Peter Simpson
Sep 11th 2012, 08:04
One failure after another; u l-hmar iwahhal f'denbu!
Mr Mike Farrugia
Sep 11th 2012, 07:49
Typical of PN. Things that have been going on for eons and the minister is surprised if not in denial what hits the front page.
O Kassar
Sep 11th 2012, 00:12
The Ministry of Education should also intervene so that a refund of the fee for revision of papers is issued to all those who did not receive any feedback before the resits were held. This is a shame. Who is responsible for this should face the music.
Frans Aguis
Sep 10th 2012, 23:55
What now they realized?
I did my A-levels in 2007 and my O's in 2005.This has always been the situation. In both sessions I asked for one revision of paper.On both occasions the reply came a few days before or a few days after the resit exam.
This is not fair as in both cases I was looking for the comments of the examiner to help with my studies for the resit.
So I really do not get the fake outrage by the ministry now in 2012 because this has ALWAYS been the case, at least these last 7 years and to the knowledge of everyone bottom up.
M cauchi
Sep 10th 2012, 20:54
PN says this is 'unacceptable and should not be repeated' should not be repeated??? it has been repeated year after year after year.
hello where were they all these years.. my kids did their exams years ago and it was still the same. WAKE UP.... WAKE UP... maybe another money making machine at the expense of our kids??
A. Spiteri
Sep 10th 2012, 20:52
Can the Minster of Education state how many students did make it through resists? And how come I know of two persons receiving a letter with the same wording! Probably a template is used. This is another indirect tax.
John B. Borg
Sep 10th 2012, 20:13
Does anyone at the Ministry of Education, including the Hon Minister of course, know the meaning of:
ACCOUNTABILITY
RESPONSIBILITY, and
RESPECT
??
Mr ALBERT LEONE GANADO
Sep 10th 2012, 20:00
Having been a Matsec examiner and marker for over 35 years before deciding that the responsibility and tension were not worth it may I make a simple suggestion. Revision of papers should be a two stage process. The first stage which could give an answer to the student in less than a week is a check for errors or omissions. In my experience 90 per cent of cases where the grade is upgraded happens because some part of an answer was missed in marking or marks were not totted up correctly. Please do not blame the marker for this because just t give some examples students often forget to write the wrong question number or do not number or separate their answers at all, do not answer each part of a question having parts separately, make no separation between one question or another, have some afterthought and continue a question in the middle of another question or answer more questions than they should have. Such a check is simple and the student should get an answer within a short time . Checking a paper for upgraqding the mark on judging the value of an an answer is more time consuming for it involves an additional examiner, in the case of a conscientous additional marker involves him seeing not only that individual paper but other paper to understand better what was expected by the original markersw sometimes meeting the original marker to arrive at a consensus. Unfortunately there is also the culture of "ha nihaffa ir-revision ma tafx kif " or pressure from parents especially when their children lie to them on their performance. I remember seeing resit papers where the candidate had not answered a single question.
C Muscat
Sep 11th 2012, 01:39
X tippretendi? B dispjacir kbir ma tlabtx revision of paper tat-tifla ghax zgur li l-marka kellha tkun ahjar; pero imbaghad meta tahsibha sew issib li s-sistema hi ghal kollox hazina ghax l-istess nies ta gewwa jirrevedu. sitt snin ilu fid-diploma fil-UK tlabt revisiion of paper (appeal) u lanqas kelli ghalfejn nitla l-ingilterra ghax il-kaz jigi mistharreg minn bord indipendenti u irbahtu u hadt il-flus tal-appeal lura.
M V Agius
Sep 10th 2012, 19:44
What a pity!
So sorry for the students who wasted their summer holidays revising half-heartedly... demoralised and unsure about their future. Their dreams are shattered by their results and this attitude from the dept does not comfort them at all. If only they are notified in time at least with a copy of their marked papers incl comments, they would def work harder for their resit. I think whilst examiners are correcting they can comment immediately on the papers what they're expecting hence revision of paper can be forwarded in an instant.
M V Agius
Sep 10th 2012, 19:38
What a pity!
So sorry for the students who wasted their summer holidays revising half-heartily... demoralised and unsure about their future. Their dreams are shattered by their results and this attitude from the dept does not comfort them at all. If only they are notified in time at least with a copy of their marked papers incl comments, they would def work harder for their resit. I think whilst examiners are correcting they can comment immediately on the papers what they're expecting hence revision of paper can be forwarded in an instant.
Emma Grima
Sep 10th 2012, 19:11
It has always been like that. I remember that in 2003 I had complained about this situation and the chairperson back then had tried to justify the delay. I remember spending a summer writing letters to The
Times and this gentleman answering back...until he finally gave up. Some things never change. The hitch is that one would already have paid for the revision of papers and sat for them with the possibility that he might have passed and so would have sat for the resits for nothing. And please when the report is sent to the student do refrain from giving one sentence 'reports'. Revision of papers are requested to guide the student where he could have done better. One sentence cannot encompass such guidance.
R Axisa
Sep 10th 2012, 18:57
Milli jidher jekk ma jkunx hemm xi hadd li jkollu l-kuragg li jitkellem dwar xi haga li tkun ilha sejra hazin, jibqa' kollox status quo, qisu xejn mhux xejn! Donnu hawn apatija kbira f'dal-pajjiz!
Tyrone Camilleri
Sep 10th 2012, 18:37
Why all the commotion? The Licence A results have not yet arrived despite having sat for the exam on 30 June!!!! ...It seems the education dept quite literally "mar il- bahar" this summer :)
K. Vella II
Sep 10th 2012, 18:10
I had the same delays in 2005. Seems nothing has changed in 7 years.
M. Busuttil
Sep 10th 2012, 18:04
The fact that there isn't a possibility to show students their exam papers shows lack of transparency. After all it is the student's piece of work especially in cases where essays are written (in most cases). Furthermore, if a student did well in an exam her work should be lauded and shared; to be of example to others and let the student continue working on her skills.
unfortunately this is far from reality...
K. Vella II
Sep 10th 2012, 18:07
There are far more draconian rules even at some prestigious UK universities, but agree with what you say in principle. This should be the case even at University level. Nothing wrong with transparency.
M. Zammit
Sep 10th 2012, 17:49
Well don't Therese Camilleri for speaking out regarding this situation. Parents should take a leaf from your book and speak out on they're children's behalf because many things don't make sense where education is concerned.
Parents are usually afraid to speak. I'm glad this parent has come forward to draw attention to this particular situation.
I'm sure there are more things parents should speak about regarding education. It seems that someone took a nap and now it's about time to wake up because this situation is unacceptable. I agree that a copy of the examination paper should be given to every candidate so that he can ask whomever he pleases to check it for him. This is what transparency is all about and nothing less is acceptable.
Ms. P.M Graham
Sep 10th 2012, 17:45
Were the requests for revisions higher than in previous years, if so that needs to be answered.
"testers pushed to the limits"
Did the mocks give out a false sense of grading?
Is it possible to get actual copies of students examination papers?
Neville Cutajar
Sep 10th 2012, 17:35
What I really cannot fathom is that the ministry has reacted after a news item in the Times of Malta. This is not new news and has been happening year after year.
The Ministry should also address why the complaints were never received? who was hiding the issues ?
I sincerely believe that the minister in question does everything in her power to deliver, unlike others, but if the people around her do not help, or to make matters worse try to hide issues, than it is no use. If I was the minister I would fire these people because they do not deserve the posts they occupy. Government employees are paid by the people around them and they should deliver the best they can, to the hand that is actually feeding them.
Cristina Cefai
Sep 10th 2012, 17:32
Calling the students whose mark was upgraded is not a reliable way of relaying the information. The MATSEC office employees work until 12.30 (or so I was told by the clerk who answered the phone) and if they are unable to reach the students in question by telephone before their working day is up, you can be sure they won't the next day because of any number of possibilities: leave, new complaints to be dealt with....
E Gatt
Sep 10th 2012, 17:24
Sometimes I think we have an obsession on trying to reinvent the wheel, probably because we feel it would hurt our national pride.
It used to be easier when we had Oxford and London ‘O’ levels. These examination boards test thousands (and not hundreds) of students every session and most of the examiners are not hired on a part time basis.
Christine Said
Sep 10th 2012, 17:01
My daughter sat for her A-levels last May. She too applied for a revision of paper in Maltese A-level which we are still waiting for. Exam was last week. I am greatly disappointed, had she received the result of the revision of paper at least a few days before she would have known where she went wrong and what she had to work on. I am very angry with the MATSEC Board as this behaviour is unprofessional and intolerable! I was hoping she would have received them in time but we were letdown. I sincerely hope that the situation will improve for the sake of future students.
m. borg (slm)
Sep 10th 2012, 16:58
How about reimbursing those who got late revisions that ended up as a useless result.
Dunstan Crockford
Sep 10th 2012, 16:56
Hon Cristina has too much on her plate! So many things have gone haywire in her remit! Her Ministry should physically be at Floriana,as I have been pointing out for ages!Hands on Ma`am!!
Cristina Cefai
Sep 10th 2012, 15:09
Firstly, students sitting for the A level resits received their revision of paper reports AFTER the papers were completed. The French students received their's after all four written sections of the examination were concluded, with only the oral examination left to go. Consequently, the examiners' conclusions about the May session were of no help whatsoever.
Secondly, the declaration ‘Please note that, although Matsec does its utmost to expedite this exercise, it cannot be guaranteed that these reports will reach the candidates before the September session’ would be an acceptable warning should an emergency be declared at the MATSEC support unit or wherever the May papers are revised - an emergency akin to the flooding or burning down of the office!
Thirdly, it should be brought to the Board's attention that some examination centres are not run professionally. The French A level Paper 3 examination was meant to take place in room 420B at Junior College. Upon arriving there, the French students saw that the room had been allocated to another subject and were diverted to another room and asked to pick 'any desk'. These desks did not feature the small slip of paper with the candidates index numbers and moreover, the classroom had already been allocated to students sitting for a different exam. Naturally, this only invited confusion amongst the hassled invigilators and concern amongst the students who are by now used to the inefficiency and disorganisation of this examination board.
Godfrey Spiteri
Sep 10th 2012, 14:21
Can I suggest a simple way forward. Why doesn't the university send a copy of the exam paper to the students who ask for revision of paper and then these students can show it to teachers who they trust in order to get positive feedback. It won't cost the university so much and at least the students will have access to their paper. If the teachers note that the mark given does not reflect the work done then they can ask for a reassessment.
Robert Henry Bugeja
Sep 10th 2012, 17:34
Very positive idea Godfrey. this should be taken in consideration by the Ministry.
C Muscat
Sep 10th 2012, 14:04
And if I may ask; do we have a refund if the revidsion is positive?
from the University in UK (Diploma Level) I got the full refund and the reply according to the official schedule by the day.
K. Vella II
Sep 10th 2012, 18:12
First we'd need statistics on how many revisions were positive in the first place...
Lisa Bonnici
Sep 10th 2012, 12:36
I think it's about time MATSEC upgrade their system. Take a page out of ACCA's book; the revision of paper is a lot more expensive than EUR35 which discourages people applying for it "just in case" and limits applications to students who actually think they deserved a higher grade and/or will honestly use the information to help study for their resit. It also means that there is more income for the system, which means that more markers may be employed, speeding up the correcting process. Although, ACCA manages to correct hundreds of thousands of papers globally in 7 weeks (approx the same amount of time it takes MATSEC to correct a fraction of the papers), which seems to be an impossible for this country.
K. Vella II
Sep 10th 2012, 18:13
I'm sure ACCA's correction standards are more standardised than MATSEC's.
M Scotto
Sep 10th 2012, 12:31
I am a second year A Level student, and honestly it has been a great ordeal waiting for my revision of paper as my entry into the University depends on it and resits. I not only received my revision of paper on the day of my last resit, I received good comments on my systems of knowledge May session specifically telling me that I had a great understanding of the questions and subject matter and gave good and relevant examples and still my mark wasn't raised (which is an E). I could not believe my eyes. Despite all the good criteria, I am stuck with a pathetic mark!! Honestly, I along with numerous students, are fed up with these people!! It's our future they are toying with!!
Ms C Bartolo
Sep 10th 2012, 12:25
The only time I applied for a revision of paper was in 1994 for Intermediate Level Systems of Knowledge. In my report I was told I had used "too much common sense". Some help it was ... Still, I should probably have had the report framed ...
Gianluca Sciberras
Sep 10th 2012, 11:37
Is sistema li qed jimxu biha dawn in-nies hija sistema intolleranti u min hu inkarigat u responsabli ghandu jiehu kull responsabilta' mehtiega ghax jista jkun hemm konsegwenzi koroh.
Nibdew min hawn, smajt hafna kasi fosthom hbieb tieghi fl-A levels li min F telawlhom il marka ghal A li ovjament dan kien zball ghax hawdu xi marka ma ta xi hadd iehor. Jafu x konsegwenzi tista tpoggi l-persuna fiha, konsegwezi koroh bhal nghidu ahna ma jkollix cans iehor biex tiripeti second year u ghalhekk taqa mis-sistema edukativa.
Barra min hekk, jien inqabbel ir-revision of paper bhalikieku jien gejt nisirqek go darek u hadtlek kollox u int ghatli "isma gbin issa halli fidi imur il-habs minflokok jien halli npatti tal-izbalji tieghek ". Dan huwa l-istess ragunament tar-revision of paper ghax jien qed inhallas lil dawk li koreguwli l-karta biex jergu jikoregu l-izbalji li HADU HUMA STESS, zbalji li kif ghadt jistu ihallhu konsegwenzi koroh.
Nahseb qabel noqodu niftahru li ghaddew xi 80%, il-ministru tal-edukazzjoni trid tahdem fuq dawn l-izbalji li mhux qed ihallu l-istudent ikompli bl-istudji tieghu.
C Muscat
Sep 10th 2012, 10:56
Unfortunately, no one cares for our children's future. These people do not realize the damage they do to our children when these do not award the correct result. To add insult to injury, no one consider what it means for the future of these children to waste a year like that (when it is just a yeaar because some of our children just drop everything away).
I am just writing even though I know that these very powerful people do what they like.
Mark Tagliaferro
Sep 10th 2012, 10:54
If I remember correctly. The paper corrector is given 2000 papers to correct in two weeks. If they had to stick to a 40-hour week this would mean just over 2 minutes per paper. Obviously they end up working much longer hours and weekends too. No wonder there are mistakes!
Mario Aquilina
Sep 10th 2012, 10:47
I fully agree that the revision of paper report should arrive to the candidate before the resits. However, please note that the time involved in revising papers is much more than that of grading the papers the first time. The reason is obvious. In a revision of paper, the examiner, as far as I know, has to write a specific "report", usually of around one page for each paper corrected. This takes time, much longer than generating a grade for a paper.
Clearly, one way to solve this problem is to invest more resources into the examination process but this would involve either the examination or resit fees rising or the government subsidising the system even more heavily. Another option is to change the dates of the examinations. That is an even more complex situation.
Gordon Grima
Sep 10th 2012, 10:06
We received our revision of paper 2 days after our son re-sat his exam!! As outlined by this frustrated mother, the revision enables you to identify where your son went wrong and rectify during the re-sit. I believe that some objectivity may also be compromised in the review of the original paper because if it is sent after the exam, then the actual revision may have been done in a hurry and its only purpose would then be to uphold the original grade/mark. This is why it is unacceptable that this process continues in this manner - especially after having paid for this 'service'.
Toni Cardona
Sep 10th 2012, 10:03
“If you’re going to offer the service, either do it properly or not at all. Otherwise, you are saying that you are doing it for the money”.
Ms Camilleri, your comment is spot on.
You also ought to check if the revision of paper report that you receive is not a photo copy of some other candidate's report amended with correction fluid. Surprises never cease.
J Zerafa
Sep 10th 2012, 13:23
Agreed! As usual it all boils down to shoddy customer service. We excel at it. But we readily and greedily pocket the money for it.
Benjamin Wirth
Sep 10th 2012, 09:28
I am an A level student and also applied for 2 revision of papers. Biology arrived a few days before d resits began and I still have not received of Philosophy yet. they have ample time to correct papers and I don't understand how it takes longer to correct an exam of just one paper (philosophy) than it takes to correct an exam of 4 papers (biology).
Joseph Mizzi
Sep 10th 2012, 10:41
Mr Wirth, you're lucky you did not take English as a subject for your A Levels. An English A Level student has made a revision of your comment, which I'm sure looks very much better than the one you've written:
I am an A Level student. I too have applied for two revisions of paper. I received the revision for Biology a few days before the resits. I'm still waiting to receive that for the Philosophy exam. In my opinion, the examiners have enough time to correct the papers. I don't understand why it takes longer to correct a one-paper exam (Philosophy) than to correct a four-paper one (Biology).
Mark Tagliaferro
Sep 10th 2012, 10:55
Simple. There are less people correcting Philosphy than Biology. Hence a similar time-frame for both occurs.
Cristina Cefai
Sep 10th 2012, 15:15
There are less people correcting French too it seems. Around 20 students sat for the resit so there couldn't have been more than 30 in all who would have applied for the revision of paper (including those who did not DEPEND on their mark to be improved in order to enroll at UoM in their preferred course). However, we received our reports after the examination was over. I'm baffled at the fact that the revision of around 30 papers required more than a month and a half to be completed!
Benjamin Wirth
Sep 10th 2012, 17:33
@ Joseph Mizzi
I apologise for the mistakes made and yes I do have English A level but I tend to make some of those mistake when typing on the computer. As for grammatical mistake that you may have found, I did not think that posting a comment on times of malta was equivalent to writing an English paper exam. But thanks for sticking to the subject of this article
Benjamin Wirth
Sep 10th 2012, 17:36
@ Mark Tagliaferro
less people or not I still expected to have the revision of paper before the exams so at least I would know what needs to be done to improve my mark. A lot of the people i spoke to reported the same thing, therefore I believe, if the number of people is an issue more should be asked to re-correct the exams.
J Degabriele
Sep 10th 2012, 09:27
Unfortunately, it has always been like that. However this mother is more than right. It involves students and their parents in unnecessary hassle, stress and worry, especially those who have worked hard and really believe that they should have done better.
Please choose the reason of your report below: