The Minister of Education, Jean-François Roberge, promises that corrective measures will be taken to put an end to the “perverse effects” caused by the modification of the marks carried out by his ministry, which had the effect of causing students to fail despite their good results obtained during the school year.
“I assure you that there will be improvements to the system to avoid gaps that are very large and to prevent significant perverse effects,” he said in an interview with The newspaper Wednesday.
In the short term, for the school year which has just ended, the minister has obtained the assurance of his department that “solutions” will be found. “We will correct the situations that need to be corrected,” he says.
Photo QMI Agency, Pascal Huot
Karine Boulay and her daughter Amélie denounced the statistical treatment of the Ministry of Education which caused the 4th grade student to fail in math.
The newspaper reported Wednesday that Amélie Bérubé, a fourth secondary student, had obtained a school mark of 72% in mathematics at the end of the year. However, this result dropped to 43% after she failed the ministerial test, due to statistical processing carried out by the ministry.
The “moderation” of grades has been carried out since 1974 by the ministry and aims to make assessment fair for all students in order to avoid candy grades or overly harsh assessments.
For each group, the pupils’ school marks are compared with those obtained in the ministerial test. If, in the same group, several students obtain exam results that are much lower than the mark given by their teacher, the mark will be revised downwards. The reverse is also true.
However, a reduction of nearly 30 points, like that imposed on Amélie, is “something abnormal”, affirms Minister Roberge. “It’s a very big gap that calls into question the ways of doing things,” he said. The young girl is far from being the only one in this situation (see other text below).
However, the minister is not ready to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” since the grade moderation system “has its virtues,” he said.
“I think it brings more fairness to the network and that’s important. It is even reassuring for parents and students to know (…) that regardless of the school, the diplomas have the same value”, specifies Mr. Roberge.
But after decades of implementation and a pandemic, which has created “very large” gaps between different schools, it is time to make changes to this policy, he adds. “The ministry is already committed to improving the system and correcting that,” assures the minister.
For her part, Amélie’s mother, Karine Boulay, is delighted to know of this commitment. “This is very good news, not just for my daughter, but also for other students in the future,” she said.
Minister Roberge also promises that a reflection will be carried out this year concerning the ministerial tests, to which the actors of the school network will be invited.
“We are in a transition period, I think we have to return to improved normality, there is no question of saying that we are returning to the status quo (…). If we have to change the ways of doing things, we will do it. The next government and the next minister will certainly tackle this situation this fall,” he said.
Several other students fail despite good results
Amélie Bérubé is far from being the only student to have failed because of a change in grades, despite her good results obtained during the school year. The newspaper yesterday received several emails from parents denouncing the same situation.
Raphaël Senécal, a fourth-grade student from the South Shore of Montreal, had 75% in science at the end of the year before taking the ministerial test, which he failed with 46%.
His school mark was then “moderate” at 48% so that he failed the course, with a final mark of 58%.
His father also multiplied the steps with the ministry to try to understand what happened.
“My son finds it difficult to accept. He lacked concentration for two hours, once a year, and here he is forced to do summer courses, ”he says.
Mr. Senécal understands the importance of equity in the school network, but he wonders why the training given by teachers is not formally evaluated during the school year, rather than making a purely statistical judgment at the light of the results of the ministerial tests.
“I find it flat that it falls into the playground of the children,” he said.
A big impact
Other parents have also told us that their teenager suffered a drop in school mark of more than fifteen points following the grade moderation process this year.
For some, the impact is very great. The entrance to CEGEP of Véronique Lajoie’s daughter is compromised because she failed her French course, which she thought was on the way to succeeding.
A parent with whom The newspaper discussed, who declined to be identified, also regrets that no particular circumstances are taken into account during the ministry’s moderation process.
His boy’s fifth-grade French school mark was lowered by 18 points while this group of students was entitled to three different teachers during the school year, he points out.