According to local media reports, more than 7,000 students from both the school levels failed in the exams — a figure, experts say, is too big for a country with a small population like Qatar.
Surprisingly, education sector regulator, the Supreme Education Council (SEC), is mysteriously silent on the exact percentage of students who have failed.
This has led to all kinds of speculation in the community as well as in the media over the ratio, with some suggesting the percentage could be as high as 70 to 75.
Shocked parents have complained to the SEC and the schools, while a heated debate rages on the issue on local social networking sites.
Some commentators, while lauding the new exam system, are pointing accusing fingers at the parents, most of whom, they say, don’t care how their children fare in the school and whether they study seriously or not the whole year.
“These parents suddenly wake up at the time exam results are out and begin screaming or begin rejoicing depending on their children’s scorecard,” said a commentator.
The parents mostly take out their ire on the school, where they have not set foot even once in a year, and on teachers whom they haven’t met before to enquire about how their children are doing.
Easy access to money and modern gadgets seem to be spoiling children as, according to some commentators, many of them are busy most of the time playing games, or chatting, or using social media on their expensive smartphones.
“There are children who keep busy with their smartphones the whole night, playing games and chatting, and head straight to school in the morning,” said a commentator.
A number of commentators have bitterly criticized the SEC for shying away from its role as a regulator of the schools after it introduced the Independent school system with much fanfare a decade ago.
The SEC is drawing flak more for not doing enough to make sure that the Independent schools imparted quality education and recruited teachers who were qualified and adequately experienced.
Teachers of Independent schools seem to have become lax as their pay packages are “fantastic” and match those in key sectors like oil and gas.
Local media reports suggested in May 2012 that the starting basic monthly salary of a Qatari teacher in an Independent school was proposed to be raised to QR40,000 ($11,000) and they would be entitled to a yearly increment of between one and six percent.
Also, an increasing number of teachers are becoming involved in the racket of private tuitions, where the fee for teaching science and mathematics, for instance, can go up to QR350 an hour.
“Education is being ruthlessly commercialised,” complained a commentator, citing the above rate.
And here is the answer to the most puzzling question of why so many students failed in the final exams of the preparatory and secondary schools this year, as provided by some commentators:
According to them, the Independent schools were holding the final exams on their own and declaring results.
Students were passing out in big numbers and there were hardly any failures. This, a commentator alleged, was aimed at showing that the school was imparting quality education and was an ideal institution.
This way, both the school managements and parents were happy. But some parents were shocked since their children passed with flying colours but they realised to their shock that they had little idea about the subjects “taught to them in the school”, according to a commentator.
Another commentator claimed that cheating in the form of copying took place on a large scale in the schools and that is why no one failed.
Getting wind of the “irregularities”, the education authorities introduced a parallel exam system called the National Exams a few years ago.
According to this system, Independent schools would conduct exams with maximum marks of 70, with the students being required to appear for another set of tests carrying maximum marks of 30.
The gap between the two exams used to be normally a fortnight.
This year, the education authorities suddenly reversed the ratio, increasing the maximum marks for the National Exam to 70 and reducing that of the schools to 30.
The students and their parents were not informed of the changed system, so the examinees were caught off guard, and that explains this year’s poor pass percentage, according to some commentators.
