HIBAPRESS – Rabat
Rashid Hamouni, the parliamentary deputy for the Party of Progress and Socialism, addressed a written question to Mohamed Saïd Barrada, the Minister of National Education, Preschool Education, and Sports, regarding ways to overcome the problems of managing the examination period in secondary preparatory schools.
Hamouni's question stated that, according to testimonies from a number of teachers in several secondary preparatory institutions, the recent examination period witnessed significant pressure on teachers in the secondary preparatory cycle, especially since the teacher is required to provide educational supervision for the local unified exam throughout the period of the third-grade preparatory exams, in addition to correction tasks, which weighs heavily on the concerned teachers and affects the quality of educational performance, especially on educational evaluation and assessment processes, due to the accumulation of tasks and professional pressure.
On a related note, in certain subjects, such as Arabic and French, the result of the correction of the local unified exam was adopted to calculate the second assignment score. This undermines the meaning of the monitoring process through the non-pedagogical mixing between continuous monitoring and comprehensive final evaluation. This procedure is considered an infringement on the principle of equal opportunities, as the second assignment score is calculated in the atmosphere of a final exam often dominated by psychological tension among the students.
Hamouni added that the continuous monitoring assignments for the first and second preparatory levels were programmed immediately after the local unified exam for the level, which poses a real problem regarding the teacher's ability to combine, at the same time, the tasks of educational supervision and the completion of continuous monitoring assignments, then correcting both assignments and exams within tight timeframes.
In addition to all that, the concerned teachers faced additional difficulties related to the registration of competencies at the "Massar" system level, in light of the pressure of time and the multitude of administrative and educational tasks, which increases the professional burden during this important period.
Based on all of that, Hamouni questioned Minister Barrada about the measures the ministry will take to alleviate the burdens on teachers, and to distribute tasks temporally and objectively according to good, equal, and balanced governance, with regard to managing the examination period for the secondary preparatory cycle, in order to achieve the quality and credibility of continuous and final educational assessments in this educational cycle?
