What are Cambridge school-assessed grades and why Pakistan didn’t opt for it in 2021?

In 2020, when the world was first hit by the pandemic, the Cambridge International announced a process for deciding school-assessed grades in five steps.

This included:

Internal standardization
Marking individual pieces of evidence
Internal moderation
Deciding grades for individual pieces of evidence
Deciding grades for complete portfolios

For each step, the Cambridge provided a detail guide in order to help the schools and teachers in assessing the grades of the students in fair manner. For each of the steps, you can check Cambridge International Document.

While there is a global surge in coronavirus pandemic again, particularly in South Asia, the Cambridge International again notified the participants around the globe that they opt out for the school-assessed grades.

“In countries, and regions of countries, where government directives mean that exams cannot take place, we are switching from exams to school-assessed grades using student work, so that students can progress despite the impact of the pandemic” stated the document.

It further confirmed that if a country is badly hit by the pandemic and cannot go ahead in their country or a region with the exams, then there is an alternate of school-assessed grades that they can pick.

While providing a substitute, the board also gave an overview of the approach.

We will ask schools to provide an assessed grade based on the level of achievement that each student has demonstrated.
To assess this grade, schools should identify a portfolio of three substantial pieces of work from each student in every syllabus.
Schools will be asked to submit grades to Cambridge International between mid-May and late June.
We will ask schools to share details of the internal quality assurance processes they have followed while collating portfolios of student work, and when submitting assessed grades. Cambridge International will also carry out external quality assurance checks on grades.

Furthermore, the Cambridge gave a number of options to the institutes to collect evidence on which the students will be marked.

These include:

Complete past papers from the syllabus with a duration of an hour or more*
Completed coursework prepared according to syllabus requirements
Work made up of questions selected from various past papers
Papers used as mock exams
Extended project work set by the school during the course of study
Tasks set by the centre, such as essays, assignments, problems, practical tasks.

Why Pakistan didn’t opt for School Assessed Grades (SAGs)?

The recent surge in Covid-19 pandemic has created a mayhem that has left thousands of students appearing for Cambridge International exams in limbo. While there were clear documents available on Cambridge Assessment International Education regarding the School-Assessed Grades to be an option for students appearing for CAIE June 2021, the government of Pakistan was found reluctant on opting out for SAGs.

The Federal Education Minister Shafqat Mahmood, stressed on the need for physical exams in a number of press conferences and interviews to local media in the past week. The question however arises, whether the Cambridge board has stated or hinted that students whose results are determined by schools assessment are lesser accepted than compared to students whose grades are determined by taking exams?

Contrary to what education government believes, the Cambridge states

“Students whose results are determined by school assessment will not be systematically advantaged or disadvantaged compared to students whose grades are determined by taking exams.”

While speaking at a local media channel, the education minister bashed the human rights activists, celebrities and the students who came out in favor of opting for school-assessed grades proclaiming that it is all for “Cheap publicity”.

“If you tell a student that you would not have to study for exams and you will be promoted, even I would have loved it as a student,” he said while speaking to a local media channel.

While lawyer and human rights activist Jibran Nasir criticized the minister saying

“Ignorance, arrogance coupled with executive authority is a recipe of disaster.” Nasir also said that in all his statements nowhere has education minister taken excuse of SAGs deadline passing. “Instead he considers himself an 'expert' on academic evaluation & it's his decision to reject SAGs. Hence it's imperative that Schools and Educationist lend public support to SAGs,”said Nasir.