Learning Curve: student surveys can help in assessing a teacher's skills

Each year when the IB results are declared, I am witness to a spectrum of emotions that span from elation to unhappiness.

And each year there are a few students who express incredulous shock at the number of points they have attained. Although I haven't done any correlational analysis, it seems each year some of the students who have been predicted to get poor grades are genuinely surprised when they get them.

Although test scores in any examination system can reveal the extent to which students have mastered course content as reflected by the number of points or grades they have achieved, they do not reveal why students have not learned.

Students seldom accept that the poor mark could be attributed to insufficient application and exam preparation. Often, parents of underperforming students express dissatisfaction and disappointment with the school or specific subject teachers, invariably the ones which students have attained low marks in.

Perhaps student evaluation of teachers could have some validity. They are the first-hand witnesses to what goes on in a classroom on a daily basis.

Schools generally don't use student evaluation surveys to ascertain teaching competencies, and there is contentious debate among teachers themselves whether students should be allowed to evaluate teachers.