Currently all assessment in Queensland schools are school based, meaning each teacher sets the exam papers, marks them and grades their students. In my opinion this form of assessment lends itself to many abuses and makes comparison of performance between schools meaningless. Listed below are 12 of my concerns. I must stress that none of these concerns is as a result of any incident that happened at the school where I am currently teaching.

1. Schools have the opportunity to offer revision sheets that have direct similarities to the exam students sit a few days later. Also, some teachers, during revision, work through questions similar to those that appear in the exam.
2. Most schools recycle a substantial percentage of an exam paper year after year. Students are able to access their exam papers after term 1 of the following year, raising issues of future student familiarity with the assessment items provided by the school.
3. All members of the teaching staff have electronic access to assessment items stored on the network. It is impossible to know when an unauthorised copy has been made. A similar situation occurs when paper copies of exams are stored in unsecure areas accessible by all staff and in some cases by students. Some of these staff have relatives studying at the school, and some tutor students from the school.
4. There have also been instances where students have managed to gain access to staff drive on the school computer system and copy supposedly secure files.
5. Old exam papers and draft versions of upcoming exam papers are often not disposed of securely. It is not uncommon to see students rummaging through school rubbish bins prior to an exam period.
6. Inconsistency in teacher-marking and in levels of exam difficulty between schools within a district and between districts is impossible to monitor or moderate.  A student’s grade depends more on which school they attend or who their teacher is and not on what they know.
7. It is difficult for a panellist to determine whether challenging/complex problems included in an assessment package have been partially or fully rehearsed.
8. The level of assistance provided to students in an exam is often not disclosed. ‘Assistance’ changes the conditions of the exam and is difficult for the panellists to gauge. Some teachers help students during exams. Some schools allow their students to bring with them one or two pages of ‘cheat sheets’ containing formulae, examples, definitions, graphs and diagrams. These sheets are not attached to the student’s answer sheets when they are sent to the panel. In one case I know (not at the current school), two pages containing differentiation and integration formulae with worked examples were handed to the students during a Maths B exam and was not attached to the answer sheets when sent to the panel.
9. Teachers know what questions are in the exam and, when talking to students, are placed in the situation of reassuring students without jeopardising the ‘unseen’ nature of an exam.
10.  Sometimes students doing the same exam are allowed to sit next to each other. A quick glance at the neighbour’s graph could mean the difference between getting an A and an E in that question.
11.  Students, who are unable to do an exam on the scheduled day due to being sick or being on holidays, sit the exam on their return. These students have the opportunity to find out from their fellow students what questions appeared in the exam.
12.  Students are made to feel they mustn’t upset their teacher in any way, in case they are penalised for their behaviour when their papers are marked.

The current system is unfair to students, teachers and the schools. It is naive to assume that breaches are easily detected at moderation/verification. The panel does not have the time, resource or sometimes the expertise to investigate all possible breaches. Even if breaches are detected, verification occurs in October, making it difficult for schools to fix any problems, and limiting opportunities for students to suddenly demonstrate their full potential.

It is reasonable to assume that most teachers will conduct themselves in a professional and ethical manner most of the time. But it isn’t reasonable to assume that all teachers will conduct themselves in a professional and ethical manner all of the time, especially when their performance as a teacher is often judged by the number of VHA and HA students they produce.

I also keep asking myself why it is that after 40+ years of all the ‘educational benefits’ the moderated school-based assessment system has brought to Queensland, the overwhelming majority of school authorities around the world, including those in the other five states in Australia, are continually refusing to adopt it.

A totally school based assessment is unreliable and makes comparison of student achievement meaningless. Without some form of external assessment, we do not have a full picture of current standard of student performance or school performance. The National Curriculum must include clear statements on assessment and not leave it entirely to organisations such as the QSA which favour a totally school based system.