Score conversion: Smoke and mirrors<\/p>\n
Patrick Guntensperger, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Indonesia suffers internationally from bad press. We all know
\nthat foreign companies refuse en masse to invest here because of
\nher status as one of the world's most corrupt countries.
\nIndonesia is known as a haven for video and music piracy. The
\nBali and Marriott bombings have done little to encourage tourism.
\nIndonesia has a reputation for selective enforcement of
\nenvironmental laws, resulting in massive pollution.<\/p>\n
Indonesia's national educational system is seen as substandard
\nanywhere outside of the Third World. Clearly, Indonesia would do
\nwell to make every effort to try to develop a more positive image
\nfor the rest of the world. Perhaps that is the thinking that
\nattempts to justify the harebrained decision to \"convert\"
\nstudents' scores on national examinations.<\/p>\n
By manipulating the statistics to reflect a fiction, some
\npeople seem to believe that the perception of our educational
\nsystem will be improved. Perhaps a more clear-thinking government
\nwill see that this misguided kind of deception will have
\nprecisely the opposite effect. There are so many things wrong
\nwith the idea of score conversions, that it's hard to know where
\nto begin.<\/p>\n
In the first place, no one will be fooled. The implementation
\nof score conversions, far from convincing people that, on
\naverage, our students are doing better than they really are, will
\nmerely cause all their scores to be dismissed as false.<\/p>\n
Our scoring system is already considered questionable as a
\nresult of inconsistencies in testing methods, the perceived
\navailability of higher scores to those who can afford a bribe and
\nrampant cheating. If we add to that the fact that the government
\nwill adjust the results in order to obtain a prettier bell-curve,
\nthe whole exercise of imposing national exams becomes a pointless
\nwaste of time and money.<\/p>\n
What do our students learn from the policy of score
\nconversion? Well first of all, they learn that intellectual
\neffort in order to get good grades is futile. Better results may
\nbe reduced and poor results enhanced to conform to a fiction;
\nscores don't reflect one's mastery of the subject but rather
\nsomeone's idealized vision of our educational system.<\/p>\n
They also learn that truth is not a particularly valuable
\ncommodity. When their educators create statistical fictions to
\nsupport a false image of their success or failure at their jobs,
\nhow can we ever expect to instill concepts such as integrity and
\nhonesty in our children?<\/p>\n
False statistical reports of our students' mastery of the
\ncurriculum make it next to impossible to improve the curriculum,
\nthe syllabus or our teaching methods. If we don't know how we're
\nreally doing, how can we possibly make any improvements? And if
\nwe make changes, how can we know if they are working? To choose
\nto manipulate the results is to accept failure, to decide to
\nperpetuate it and to try to sell everyone a lie about it.<\/p>\n
If observers of our troubled educational system are
\nunimpressed by the current standards, their impressions will soon
\ndeteriorate even further. It will be clear to any thinking person
\nthat there hasn't been a sudden improvement in our student's
\nperformances just because the statistics suddenly become more
\nflattering to the Department of Education.<\/p>\n
What's more, they'll know that the likelihood of any
\nimprovement in the future has just been significantly diminished,
\nbecause our ability to monitor our actual, real performance has
\njust been hamstrung. In yet another transparent attempt at
\ndeception, a government scheme will have accomplished little more
\nthan shooting themselves in the foot.<\/p>\n
The effort to convince observers and interested parties that
\nour educational system is better than it actually is will have
\nhad the effect of convincing everyone that it is, if possible,
\nworse than it is.<\/p>\n
So Indonesia's reputation suffers, the accuracy of our
\nunderstanding of our educational system suffers, the poor
\neducation of our graduates causes business and industry to suffer
\nand, most important, our children suffer. Their poor education
\nwill deny them acceptance at reputable institutions of higher
\nlearning, they will be unprepared to compete with graduates of
\neducational systems with integrity and good standards and they
\nwill have been taught that mediocrity is acceptable as long as
\nyou lie about it.<\/p>\n
Here's a radical idea! Let's improve the education of our
\nchildren rather than just adjust their marks to pretend they're
\nlearning something they're not. Let's address the reality rather
\nthan just the image. Perhaps a new government might divert some
\nfunds from the streams of graft flowing into the private accounts
\nof corrupt officials and invest them in our educational system.<\/p>\n
Recruit professional teachers and pay them a good wage. Impose
\nhigh standards, research and deploy the most effective teaching
\nmethods, upgrade teaching facilities, improve curricula, build
\nlibraries in schools, update reading lists and the books
\nthemselves. Nothing would be more effective at convincing people
\nthat we have an effective education system than actually having
\nan effective education system. Perhaps to those who would prefer
\nsimply to practice spin control, these seem like outlandish
\nideas.<\/p>\n
The writer, social and political commentator, can be reached
\nat ttpguntensperger@hotmail.com<\/p>",
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