Thread: 12th year students fail four of five O-Net exams

Originally Posted by tomcat

Who are the test writers?

A group of Thai senior Mathayom teachers that are selected by their district.

Originally Posted by tomcat

Who grades the tests? Machines? (Who programs them?) Humans (what is their training?)

From what I saw, they are hand graded, even though they are multiple choice. I would have thought something like scantron or even zipgrade would have been used....

Originally Posted by tomcat

Is there any correlation between the tests and what is taught in Thai classrooms?

At the school I'm currently at, a great deal of effort goes into ensuring the curriculum for M1-M3 matches what's on the O-NET.

The reason for the focus on the lower mathayom ONET scores are simple. It's the way schools are "ranked" in their province. A higher ranking means more M1 students will register along with the school being allowed to charge more for its registration fees. It's about the money, honey.

...thanks for the information:

Originally Posted by CSFFan

A group of Thai senior Mathayom teachers that are selected by their district.

...and what is their background in test item writing? "Senior" in the local context appears to mean bumtime on seat rather than learning from experience...

Originally Posted by CSFFan

From what I saw, they are hand graded, even though they are multiple choice

Thousands of tests are hand-graded? in 2017? Maybe the highly qualified and marvelously credentialed folks at NIET have an answer...

Originally Posted by CSFFan

At the school I'm currently at, a great deal of effort goes into ensuring the curriculum for M1-M3 matches what's on the O-NET.

teaching to the test then...rote uber alles...

Compared to 6 years ago, Thai students are improving - maybe.

2011

Average score for Matayom 6 students in basic subjects - below 50 per cent

Thai - 42.61
English - 19.22
Mathematics - 14.99
Social studies 46.51
Science 30.90


https://teakdoor.com/thailand-and-asi...ml#post1723842 (Thailand May Need A National Education Agenda)

http://www.bangkokpost.com/learning/...on-test-scores

.

2016

Mathayom 6 students

Thai - 49.36
English - 24.78
Mathematics - 26.59
Social studies - 39.7
Science - 33.4


.

2017

Average scores for Mathayom 6 students tested this year in four subjects were under 50%.

Thai - 52.29
English - 27.7
Mathematics - 24.8
Social studies - 35.89
Science - 31.62



.

Originally Posted by tomcat

well, it's Thailand we're discussing...

Some ~ 50% of the posters here in this thread, including yourself, are also interested in what the rest of the "world" does for a comparative opinion. Would not the 6 Asian nations, in the top 20 in table, be teaching in a similar manner to the Thais or are their systems, culture, teaching, marking and school administration, so different?

Originally Posted by importford

Do they do the same tests in Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos,... and how were the results of these tests there? Just interested to compare the education level with neighboring countries.

Originally Posted by BaitongBoy

^ Agree...Would be interesting to know...

Originally Posted by Farang Ky Ay

Education shouldn't cost an eye, feel sad for people who could n't afford it or got indebted for it, it's not like this all around the world

Originally Posted by ENT

That's in every country in the world, which is why tertiary education costs have sky-rocketed along with student loan debts, which are the provenance of students from poorer socio-economic backgrounds (unless one is feminist/gay/BMEA/'ethnic'/physically/mentally challenged), not the cosseted offspring of the rich and privileged who can afford to pay their course fees, their living costs and 'loose change' party funds. While I was at Otago Uni NZ,

Originally Posted by CaptainNemo

https://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/researc...er/2014-42.pdf

Originally Posted by Thai3

We see the results of Thai education almost every time we have a problem with companies like the Banks, True internet, AIS etc. Like today at True last month we changed the plan at their suggestion as you get faster speed for the same price, result a cock up with the billing and incomprehensible account sent with figures which seem illogical at best, also they have not sent a new remote ordered the last time we went in. In most other countries this would have taken 5 minutes to sort out and explain, 45 minutes later and with the help of a supervisor we were still no wiser. As for the remote that was never sent as the man who dealt with it had buggered off to become a monk, nothing to do with True then

Originally Posted by tomcat

I'll take what the Brits are doing (with all its supposed flaws) over the mindless exercise on offer locally...

9th grade failed all 5 exams



(…)

O-Net stands for Ordinary National Educational Test. It is conducted annually by Niets to measures students' basic knowledge in five key subjects -- mathematics, English, Thai language, social studies and general sciences. All grade 6, 9 and 12 students must take the test to assess their academic proficiency. O-Net scores for grade 12 students are used for university admission.

Education permanent secretary Chaipreuk Sereerak told the Bangkok Post on Saturday that the O-Net results for the 6th and the 9th graders did not fluctuate much over the past few years.

The average scores under 50% did not mean the quality of students had dropped. However, it was undeniable that the gap between schools in Bangkok and the provinces as well as the gap between large and small schools remained a concern.

The curriculum and the test methods will be developed to better reflect students' real competency, he said.

(…)

Mathayom 3 students fail all five O-Net subjects | Bangkok Post: news

When my wife studied for her teacher's licence, under the topic of "Assessment", were a number of long formulae used to assess the fairness or otherwise of an exam. These formulae were quite complex (for the average teacher) and indicate that the Education Department treats the matter of exams quite academically.

Having worked at a Rajabhat (and not so long ago done something with the MEd and PhD programmes at one), I know from first-hand experience that teacher training in Thailand is fucking abysmal; whilst trainee teachers may be presented with a variety of statistical tools for checking the validity of exams, their understanding of them is generally zero. This kind of thing happens constantly - students at all levels are presented with some impressive bit of sciency-looking stuff and then 5 minutes later, everyone forgets about it but it looks impressive on the curriculum reviews and the instructors get to feel good about themselves.

As for O-NET, it's written by idiots. I've only looked in detail at the English M6 one but the level of the questions is way beyond even the already ludicrously optimistic expectations the Ministry of Education have for the abilities of Thai school kids. Some questions are at a level beyond that required for entrance to UK universities. Some questions have multiple correct answers. Some have none. Some questions have nothing to do with the subject nominally being tested. And even if by some miracle you manage to get all the answers right, it's a written, multiple choice test of your language abilities and thus fairly worthless. The exams are an essay in stupidity and institutional failure. So highly appropriate for the Thai education system.

Average scores for Mathayom 6 students tested this year in four subjects were under 50%.

Unfortunately, averages don't mean much here - huge numbers seem to get very close to the average pay off for guessing and a few do very well so the average gives a somewhat misleading impression. Things are actually worse than they appear to be.