Academic Standards

We have now turned to the topic of academic standards with the teacher group. It is immediately obvious that this will be a difficult concept partly because it is more abstract and partly because of old beliefs about what an academic standard is. The textbook is not an academic standard. Student grades are not an academic standard. Both of these beliefs are widely held here.



Academic standards can only be observed when you have both the material and skills along with student exam performance on these two aspect of knowledge. Since no outside exams are available here, we have to devise an internal system where we write semester exams. This is especially difficult since teachers are not trained in test writing.

Attempting to establish a standard by setting the material to be learned along side the test performance of students on a semester by semester basis is not the ideal way to establish academic standards. We need to start some place. More reports later on this topic.