Deleting central exams hardly disturbs final grades
The scrapping of the central final exams will on average make little difference to the final grades of students nationally. Research agency Panteia only expects a strong effect for students in the pre-vocational secondary vocational education (VMBO-bb), because these students have improved their final grades in recent years with the scores of the central exams.
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Education minister Arie Slob decided in March to cancel the central final exams because of the crisis. The researchers from Panteia wanted to know: what does this mean for the students based on the historical figures from the previous years: 2013 to 2019. To what extent do you see deviations? For this they used the figures from DUO, which show how students score on their school exams and the central final exam. They took all subjects for which both a school and a final exam were taken, both exams count 50 percent for the final mark.
Marginal
The figures show that most students score slightly better on the school exams than on the central final exams. “Although it is about marginal differences,” says Inge van den Ende, researcher at Panteia. On average, students in VMBO-KB, VMBO-GT and VWO score one tenth point higher in their school exams than in the final exam. "There is almost no difference in HAVO: 0,01 point."
The figures show that most students score slightly better on the school exams than on the central final exams
Nationally, it will not make a difference for the overall final result that the central exam is canceled, says Van den Ende. “But, you can make comments on that. Of course, this does not always apply at an individual level. We certainly do not say: 'cancel the final exams completely'. In a central exam you test other skills, for example reading skills in the languages that are less common in the school exams where you mainly look at speaking and listening. ”
We certainly do not say: abolish the final exams completely
Higher scores
The figures show that students following the VMBO-BB course can have the greatest problems not passing the final exams. “The figures from the past seven years are very relevant for this type of school,” says the researcher. “This group scores higher on the central final exams. The difference is 0,3 points and that is especially important if you are just at a tipping point. These students can therefore experience the most inconvenience from canceling the final exams. ”
However, all secondary school students will be given an extra resit opportunity this year: the result improvement tests that concern the subject matter from the school exams that have been taken. "We have to see how that will work out for the success rate."
