Yellowknife (Nov 29/06) - High school principals say standardized tests from Alberta count too heavily towards students' final marks.

Departmental exams for each subject are mandatory for all high school students in the territory. The results are worth 50 per cent of a student's overall grade.

Johnnie Bowden, principal of St. Patrick high school, said it's unfair that Departmental Exams are worth 50 per cent of a student's final mark. - Jessica Klinkenberg/NNSL photo

"My hope is that one day it won't be worth 50 per cent of a student's final mark," said Johnnie Bowden, principal of St Patrick high school. Mieke Cameron, principal of Sir John Franklin high school, agrees.

"(Students) learn so much more than what tests can test," she said.

"Real learning happens in groups, it happens in co-horts, it happens in teams."

Bowden said the tests are unfair because the vast majority of his students graduating high school do not go on to university and other learning institutions outside the territory, where such exam results would have more bearing.

"Statistics would suggest that 12 to 15 per cent of our students are going to university. What about the other 85 per cent?" Bowden asked.

He said another problem is that because of the smaller number of students in the NWT compared to Alberta, statistics could become skewed.

"A student could go in having a bad day," he said. "In Alberta that means nothing, but with so few students taking the exam here it can bring the mark down."

In Chemistry 30 last year, approximately 12,000 Alberta students took the test, whereas only 44 St Patrick's students took it. Statistically, the NWT students scored comparably with Alberta.

Charles Dent, minister of education, attended high school in Alberta, and sees nothing wrong with the weight given to the departmentals.

"I think that 50 per cent is much more fair than what I had when I went to school," he said.

"When I took them they were 100 per cent," he said.

In the NWT, Dent said the 50 per cent measure has been in place since he took over as education minister in 2004.

"One of the things of you have to do is negotiate what your marks mean to post-secondary institutions across Canada," he said.

Bowden said, on the other hand, the tests aren't all bad. They do help assess what students are learning in the classroom.

"They give you important diagnostic information of whether or not you're teaching the core objectives," he said.

The territorial government pays Alberta for the tests. Dent was unable to provide an exact cost.

"I'm sure it would cost us 10 times the amount (to have our own tests) than what it costs us to (buy them)," he said.

Dent said it doesn't mean schools in the NWT can only teach subject matter for which Alberta departmental exams exist. He cited the Northern Studies program as an example.

He said that the NWT, Yukon, B.C. and a few other provinces work together on curricula, which have some input on the departmental exams.

"Now, because we participate, you see more Northern-based questions."

Stefan Christensen is a St Pat's student who took the exams last year.

He doesn't like the fact that students have plug along with their courses all year-long only to have their ultimate scholastic fates depend on one exam taken at the end of the year.

"I don't particularly like them, they are worth 50 per cent of your final mark," he said. "If you bomb this exam it drags you down. It's a wild card. It can be good and it can be bad."

Hayse Shouhda also took the departmentals last year at St Pat's, but he doesn't see what the fuss is all about.

"I'm the odd case, where I see them as any other exam," he said.

Shouhda said he was struggling in a course last year, but the departmental brought his mark up because he did so well.

"Sometimes it can be unnerving. Not even these teachers know what's going to be on there," he said.