The ModA exams are set to be conducted in a digital format from May 19 to June 6, evaluated by a team formed specifically for this purpose by the Educational Assessment Institute.
“There is a preliminary notice concerning the ModA exams and all related services: from secretariat, surveillance, to corrections. Everything associated with these exams,” announced the secretary-general of Fenprof in a press conference at the beginning of May.
Mário Nogueira acknowledged that students might miss classes on the exam days and argued that the ModA exams impose extra work on teachers, considering them to be tests “with no meaningful purpose in what might be termed as assessing the system”.
A week after the press conference, the Ministry of Education, Science, and Innovation (MECI) announced the authorization to hire 27 specialized IT network technicians to assist with the administration of the ninth-grade final exams conducted in digital format.
These technicians will support and solve any potential issues on the test days from June 20 to 25 and can be hired by the “27 school clusters or non-clustered schools that indicated this need in the latest survey conducted.”
For conducting these tests and the Learning Monitoring exams (ModA), also in digital format, the ministry reports the allocation of 15.4 million euros to 809 school clusters and independent schools.
Of this amount, 15.3 million was earmarked for purchasing or repairing computers, and 122,380 euros for other IT equipment like extensions and headphones; however, schools only used “8.32 million for purchasing computers,” it adds.
It also states that, according to the directors’ information, “there are still 96,550 computers available to distribute among teachers and students” for these exams, 65,866 of which have already been used and returned for redistribution.
The results of the ModA exams, which replace the previous assessment tests, do not affect students’ internal grades, course approvals, or year transitions but will allow, according to the MECI, “an annual monitoring of results in Basic Education” and may contribute to “defining more tailored pedagogical approaches to the individual needs of each student, as well as providing information at the national, regional, municipal, and school levels.”
