Or it can even destroy the future. I’d like to share my gloomiest thoughts on this point  and invite you to find the way out together.

What are you doing after a visit to your child’s doctor? Follow the instructions? Not I. First I read about the medicine prescribed in the Internet (to make sure there are no dangerous side-effects), then read the forums where people describe the problem, survey the friends who have children of the same age and with similar health problems, phone the friend-doctor and ask for a consultation. Why do I behave like this? I’m afraid to hurt my child.

This fear started after numerous talks with my friends who are experienced teachers at different universities of the city. We complained to each other about the new generation of students who don’t want to study. A Medical Academy teacher said, “You can’t imagine how low is the professional level of doctors we let graduate!»  The only hope is that if a patient is really determined to stay alive and no doctor can prevent him from doing it.

Then I started preaching the idea of C-grade students terminating the human race. If they want to graduate – 50% of the grades is enough to get this C-grade in each subject. It means a student can learn only half of the theory, do only half of the tasks, and get only half of the qualification s/he needs for the job. How do you like the situation when your child is treated by a half-doctor, your plane is steered by a half-pilot, your country nuclear weapons are controlled by a half-operator?

 The situation is aggravated with the fact that the technology is being developed every second and information is growing endlessly. One day we will find out that to become a good engineer you should start the professional education from the nursery – otherwise you won’t have enough time to digest the experience and knowledge of your ancestors.

This is the reason why I decided to get involved into the assessment. The fact is well known – assessment is the key aspect of education and any change in it determines consequent changes in the whole system. We experiment with the scoring and this year it is 50% of the grades for the current work and 50 % for the final exam. There are no teamwork skills, reflection or research assessed in the exam and our pragmatic students might resist the idea of developing them at the lessons. If 3-5 minutes exam talk “costs” the same as 10 project-like or close to real life tasks done at the lessons the students will tell me one day to stop this stuff as irrelevant. How to make it clear that their study aim is to become a successful professional but not to survive the next exam?

As a solution I suggest this plan. First, define the aims (or competencies) according to the job contemporary needs, reviewing them regularly (as 4-5 years of study is a long period for the labor market) and assess exactly what is planned and in demand at the moment. As the market is rapidly changing and very flexible comparing to the educational machine the skills of life-long learning should find their place both in study and in assessment. But how can it be done?

What do you feel about your assessment practices? How can we make the difference and protect the future?