Monitoring Student Progress in Mathematics and Science
As mandated in Article 4 of the Royal Decree, the Quality Assurance Authority for Education and Training monitors the quality of education in Bahrain.11 Students in basic education take national examinations administered by the Quality Assurance Authority in four subjects: mathematics, science, Arabic, and English. The examinations are designed to evaluate student learning progress and collect information on students, schools, and school performance. Until recently, the national examinations were administered on a yearly basis. Recently, the Quality Assurance Authority decided to administer the examinations in a three year cycle such that examinations last year were administered to students at the end of Cycle 1 (Grade 3) only; this year they will be administered to students at the end of Cycle 2 (Grade 6) only, and next year they will be administered to students at the end of Cycle 3 (Grade 9) only.
In order to monitor student progress, the Ministry of Education’s school evaluation system, which is applied in all schools in Bahrain,12 assesses student performance based on the following components in all subjects:
- Daily classwork, homework, and classroom quizzes; teacher observations of student behavior and attitude toward classmates; project work, which varies across subjects; and subject knowledge (30 percent)
- Midterm examination (20 percent)
- End-of-term examination (50 percent)
In 2013, a ministerial order was issued to allocate 10 percent of total assessment to an oral mathematics examination (i.e., 20 percent of the end-of-term examination) for Cycle 2 students in order to evaluate the new numeracy strategy.