New ModA tests scheduled for end May/ beginning June
One strike that will not cause too much in the way of upset is that announced by teachers’ federation FENPROF which is boycotting the new ModA tests for 4th and 6th graders (school children aged 10-12).
“Everything to do with these exams” is being boycotted, said federation president Mário Nogueira, admitting this could mean that children are left without classes on the test days.
“In some cases, students don’t have (classes on the days)”, he concedes. “In other cases, particularly in the first cycle (primary school), the classes of the teachers who are involved in the exams are going to be sent to classes that are already full – the classes of other colleagues – and so this doesn’t make any sense, because there are no classes there either, although the children will stay at school. But there will be confusion that is not normal for the development of activities,” he stressed.
For the trade unionist, the ModA tests are being “made at the expense of the teachers’ workload” and are tests that “make no sense whatsoever in what could be called benchmarking the system”.
“In practice, they are a kind of generalised exam for all students. They are tests that will jeopardise the work of schools, creating instability in the classrooms of some teachers with the pupils of others who are involved in the tests. These tests make no sense at all,” Nogueira concluded.
The only people potentially badly-affected from this strike will be parents, who bear the brunt of all school-related strikes.
Meantime, reports recall that these tests (which may well not take place between May 19 and June 6) are to be undertaken in digital format “to be graded by a team of evaluators from the Institute for Educational Evaluation set up for this purpose”. In other words, a team that may have very little, in the end, to do.
Source material: LUSA
