Exams are intentionally made difficult – WHY SHOULD EDUCATION SERVE THE EXAM?

Aztəhsil.az reports based on Azpolitika.info: 

Education is provided in schools so that the younger generation can learn something, acquire knowledge, develop thinking skills, and grow into educated and cultured individuals.

• However, a situation has arisen in our country today where it seems that education is provided in schools so that students can pass the State Examination Center's entrance exam at the end of 11 years. In other words, we teach not to raise individuals who acquire life skills, gain knowledge, express themselves, and are useful to the world, but to conduct exams.
• As a result of this approach, the thinking-oriented, i.e., skill and competency-based education model, which is the core philosophy of the modern curriculum, is effectively relegated to the background, and its place is once again taken by information-heavy, memory-oriented education. Thus, the goal of education becomes not the intellectual development of the student, but achieving a result in the 700-point entrance competition. Consequently, the main indicator of a school's or a teacher's activity begins to be measured precisely by this scoring system.

Curriculum Philosophy and the 700-Point Competition

In reality, from an institutional perspective, the functions are clear. The main task of the Ministry of Science and Education is to shape the content of general education and ensure the implementation of teaching in schools, based on the “Law on Education” and approved curriculum documents. The function of the State Examination Center, on the other hand, should be the measurement of academic knowledge and competencies necessary for admission to higher education institutions and state bodies, i.e., the organization of the assessment process, and the organization of a fair admission process in accordance with the knowledge and skills of the examinees.

However, it is observed that the State Examination Center does not merely act as an assessment institution. It prepares and publishes various textbooks, test collections, workbooks for different grades, and assessment materials for applicants preparing for exams, effectively acting as a new educational structure influencing education policy in this area, and also engaging in publishing activities. This leads to a blurring of functional boundaries in the education system and the emergence of institutional duality. This also damages the reputation DİM has built over many years, as DİM begins to appear as a party pursuing its own interests.

Blurring of Functional Boundaries in Education

In such a situation, teachers working in schools are forced to move away from the lesson model focused on life skills and competencies, which are defined as the main direction in the curriculum, and instead teach more in line with the measurement format used in entrance exams. In the classroom, instead of activities that develop analytical thinking and problem-solving skills, assigning test tasks and practicing exam models becomes a priority.

On the other hand, the textbooks approved by the Ministry of Science and Education, and the tasks within these textbooks, do not fully align with this exam format. This is because the institution conducting the entrance exams, namely the State Examination Center, publishes various methodological journals and programs every year, and these documents announce the topics and question models that will appear in the exam. Teachers are thus forced to set aside textbooks and follow this process. This practice has been established since the 1990s, and today, the entrance exam has effectively become the main factor determining the direction of education. This is very wrong; the direction of education should be shaped by content, not by assessment!

It should be specifically noted here that the content of exam questions is not outside the textbooks; every fact asked in the questions is taught. However, processes such as the approach to the question, problem-solving format, analytical thinking, text analysis, etc., appear differently in education and in the exam.

The Reason for the Expansion of Tutoring

This is precisely why the system of additional preparation and tutoring has become so widespread in the country. This is because someone must annually monitor DİM's programs, know which topics have been added or removed, analyze what types of questions will appear, and teach this to students. Teachers working in schools have limited opportunities to allocate extra time for this. They already have a heavy teaching load, assessment obligations, and daily pedagogical activities. For this reason, teachers offer the extra time they spend as a separate service, which we today call tutoring. The result of this is an additional financial burden for society, and stress and psychological tension for students and parents. This situation also creates a double financial burden for the state in a certain sense and can cast a shadow on the effectiveness of the work the state does for its citizens. In particular, 10th-11th grade textbooks, unfortunately, “always look new,” meaning these textbooks remain unused due to the weight of the preparation program. Our state provides free education and textbooks to its citizens, but in the end, because these textbooks do not fully align with the entrance exam, students spend money again to buy books published by the State Examination Center and bypass schools to resort to additional preparation courses and tutors. This creates a situation where the state makes conditions that are free in one of its institutions paid through the hands of another institution. It would be better if DİM's materials for applicants were published as 10th-11th grade textbooks and given to schoolchildren for free instead of the current textbooks. Here, both the state and the citizen benefit!

On the other hand, the high difficulty level of university entrance exams sometimes creates the impression that the education provided in schools is insufficient. Therefore, university admission scores are lowered, and as a result, students who achieve results corresponding to a grade level even lower than 2 (those scoring 150 points) are admitted to universities. This raises questions among citizens regarding the general logic of the education system and casts a shadow on the state's sincere intentions.

Is the Education System for Youth or for Exams?

If the goal is solely objective selection, then such questions rightly arise: why are new question models announced every year? Why are admission programs frequently changed and new journals published? Why is the publication of assessment materials monopolized by a closed institution? It is difficult to find a widespread example of such a practice in the world where a state institution performing such an important function is simultaneously engaged in the publishing business of that field. I don't know, perhaps this stems from DİM being a public legal entity, but in any case, it is wrong. A necessary budget should be allocated for DİM, and the teachers working there should not be in such close contact with society, nor should they become an interested party.

This system of publications has created a situation where a student cannot pass on the admission materials they used last year to a sibling graduating the following year. This is because changes are made every year, and new books are published under the name of “improved edition,” which parents are then forced to buy. All of this sometimes leads to the entrance exam being presented as if it were the sole savior of the education system. It is implied that without this system, the education system would collapse, and bribery and corruption would increase. However, today we no longer live in the realities of the 1990s. For that period, this model was effective to a certain extent. Today, there is a need to consider new models that are more balanced and aligned with the logic of education.

In my opinion, schools should be given some room to breathe. The education system should be simple, understandable, and functional. The current model has become so complex that sometimes additional explanations are needed even to explain it. Sometimes, it even creates the impression that the “unexplained version” in the education system is presented by the Ministry of Science and Education, while the “explained version” is presented by the State Examination Center. As it was said in the movie, two manats for unexplained, three manats… Most importantly, we need to think about the youth, who are the main subjects of this system. They are the future of this country. With the entrance exam, we are not selecting extraordinarily talented “child prodigies.” We are simply selecting young people who want to learn certain professions so that they can study at university, acquire a profession, and serve society in the future as doctors, teachers, and engineers. However, today a situation has sometimes arisen where a student preparing for medical faculty knows the number of skull bones more accurately than a traumatologist, and a student preparing for Azerbaijani language sometimes memorizes grammatical details more deeply than a teacher. This is not real knowledge, but the result of exam-oriented rote learning. The dissatisfaction of young people after the last graduation exam is also related to this to some extent. The pace of life is increasing, and people need to live more comfortably and stress-free. When education also becomes an additional source of stress, it exhausts both students and parents.
In reality, the solution to the problem is not that complicated.
If a student possesses reading comprehension skills, can think logically, and has mastered basic academic knowledge at an elementary level, then it is possible to differentiate students and admit them to universities without the need for a very complex and burdensome examination mechanism.

For example, if we simplify the questions and keep the system stable for 3–5 years, and if the passing score were 300–400 instead of 150, what would change? I have been working in this field for thirty years and am one of the authors of the most widely read books for applicants. I know very well that any question can be prepared in such a way that even the strongest student cannot answer 3–5 questions, or that the majority achieve a result above 50 percent. By digging through books and preparing controversial questions down to the smallest detail, we cannot reveal the true potential of young people.