Should exams be scrapped for good?

The Directorate of Education in Norway is asking the question whether exams should be scrapped for good as it considers other alternatives.

The question, which is being asked by many Norwegians, follows three years of scrapped examinations due to the pandemic. With lockdowns having kept students at home, many have chosen to continue with home schooling providing the country with a challenge as to how best to test knowledge and understanding.

As part of the discussion the directorate was to initiate research on how exams work in the Norwegian school system, whether they are the best way of testing and how effective they are in proving capability and understanding.

Per Kristian Larsen-Evjen, Department Director for the upper secondary education curriculum, told the newspaper Aftenposten: “In the slightly longer term, the Directorate wants to try out alternatives to the current exam.”

Professor and assessment researcher Tony Burner at the University of Southeast Norway believes that the pandemic has shown that it is possible not to have exams.

He said: “Many teachers say they got more time for teaching and mid-term assessment after exams were cancelled. And many students have experienced less stress.”

Not everyone is convinced though with the Norwegian Teachers’ Association is sceptical that a suitable alternative can be found. Its leader, Helle Christin Nyhuus, says that exams are an important part of a comprehensive assessment system that already includes other methods.

The research and debate the directorate wants to have does not mean the end for exams but rather that it wish to answer the question whether exams should be scrapped for good, and whether the system is still right and appropriate in the changed education world that has followed Covid-19?

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