Invigilator

In the Malawi secondary school system, no marks are given apart from the end of term exam. Last term, only 14% (6/40) Form One students passed. This is not surprising given that such a system means there is zero accountability for attendance or homework completion, and teachers don’t bother with unit exams. The result? Students have no need to actually learn the material prior to the last possible minute. Anyone who has ever crammed knows that this type of learning leads to surface knowledge that is unreliable in the exam room and rarely retained past the weekend. Compounding matters even further, pass rates don’t have any bearing on grade level promotion, so no one really takes them seriously. (The teachers claim there would be no room for all of the students who would fail, so they don’t bother to hold anyone back.) It’s no wonder, then, that pass rates for the Junior Certificate Exam (between Forms 2 and 3 grades) and the Malawi Senior Certificate Exam are dismally low. How can the students perform well under high pressure (the state exams are monitored by police officers) when they have never been asked to perform at all before?

I learn first-hand just how relaxed the attitude is when I show up to invigilate (yes, this amazing word is real – a great British term for administering tests) my assigned term two exams Tuesday. Morning exams supposedly begin at 8:00am. However, when I arrive just prior, students are still scattered all over the grounds and teachers are sitting around the lounge. Someone rings the bell at 8:10 or so and it is completely ignored by the students. Teachers are still trying to sort out the masses of photocopies that have arrived from our contracted typist.

I finally have my assigned papers in hand (Form 4 Maths) and go to get things started. A five minute warning and request that the students in the class go to gather their peers garners basically no response. It’s only when I start handing out exams to the few young people sitting in desks and announce the start of the clock that a stream of students loudly and disrespectfully enter the classroom. It takes ten minutes and me losing my cool a bit to get them settled and quiet.

If empty spaces on answer sheets are any indication, they proceed to bomb the exam.

Afternoon exams for electives (Home Economics, Bible Knowledge, Social and Development Studies) go slightly better, both because I’m able to set expectations at the end of Maths, and because they actually seem able to write something. Nonetheless, I come home bummed out by the lack of caring on the part of students and teachers alike. At this point, I’m pedagogically somewhat opposed to this type of testing to demonstrate knowledge, but if that’s the basis of the whole system, one might as well attempt to prepare students to succeed. Here’s hoping some of my Form 1 efforts have bourn fruits!