Final exams should not be the end of the world

You can now touch the tension as students sit their final examinations to get ‘promoted’ from one level of education to the next.

The end of the year brings with it Primary Leaving Examinations (PLE), Uganda Certificate of Education (UCE) and Uganda Advanced Certificate of Education (UACE).

Pupils and students are expected to excel in these final examinations or else they are seen as ‘failures’.

An entire seven years of learning is summarized in doing well in PLE while the same is expected in the latter two given to secondary school ‘graduates’ are the closest you may ever come to being an academic giant or dwarf.

While examinations are an important means of assessment to ascertain if learning objectives have been met, they should not be the determinant of all.

Make no mistake, final exams are a crucial component of most academic courses, serving as an ultimate assessment tool to evaluate students’ understanding and retention of course material.

While some argue that final exams are necessary to determine the success of learners in their respective fields, we contend that they put undue pressure on students and do not accurately reflect their overall performance.

The high-stakes nature of these exams can negatively impact students’ overall health and academic performance.

In their current format, final exams often focus on testing memorisation and regurgitation of information rather than deep understanding or practical application of knowledge.

This narrow assessment scope may not accurately reflect students’ true abilities or their grasp of the subject matter.

In addition, they typically provide a single opportunity to demonstrate knowledge and skills, which can be disadvantageous for students who may perform poorly due to factors such as illness, personal issues, or exam-related anxiety.

The structure of final exams, with a significant amount of content to cover in a limited time, can promote cramming and superficial learning.  Students may prioritise short-term memorization rather than in-depth understanding, which may not contribute to true mastery of the subject.

The reliance on multiple-choice or standardised questions is rigid and, therefore, may not effectively assess students’ unique strengths, creativity, or alternative problem-solving approaches.  There is an emphasis on performance over learning: The heavy focus on final exam scores can create a culture where the pursuit of grades becomes more important than genuine learning. 

It’s also not possible to see other important skills within a three-hour exam. Final exams predominantly assess academic knowledge and may overlook essential skills such as critical thinking, problem-solving, creativity, and teamwork, which are valuable for real-world success.