Testing centre fails to soothe students snared in exam fiasco
Students are sweating as they try to secure university places despite gaining exams marks of zero as the National Institute of Educational Testing Service remains unable to match some 1,500 answer sheets to their owners.
"Please contact [the testing service] if you still get zero," its director Prateep Chankong said after the O-Net (Ordinary National Educational Test) and A-Net (Advanced National Educational Test) scores were announced on many websites yesterday. He said his agency's offices would be open every day, regardless of the Songkran festival, to settle the problem and blamed students for failing to provide full details on their answer sheets, making it impossible to confirm their identity. By yesterday evening, Prateep said about 8,000 students had lodged complaints with the body about problems relating to the second round of score announcements. On April 2, it overruled the scores it announced a day earlier because of the number of zero scores, which pointed to an error. In the face of the crisis, Prateep said he had become demoralised and decided not to seek another term as director. "It may be beyond my abilities," he admitted, adding that his term had expired in February and he was now only the acting director. This is the first year the O-Net and A-Net scores will be used as admission criteria for higher education. About 300,000 12th graders sat the tests, producing millions of answer sheets. Wasinee Sritawat na Ayutthaya, a student from Srinakharinwirot University's Prasarnmit Demon-stration School, said she was shocked to find her online score still gave her a zero mark for O-Net English. She said she complained to the testing centre last week when the mark first appeared but was told to check it again yesterday. "My mum is stressed," Wasinee said. The student faxed a complaint to the centre asking to review her answer sheets yesterday but said she received no satisfactory response. Wasinee plans to try to review her answers again today and get her results in time to apply for Chulalongkorn University. In addition to the zero marks, many students complained that their scores differed from those announced on April 1, when initial scores were announced. "My April 1 score for A-Net English is 83.2 and my friend had 75.5 so how come yesterday's score in the subject is just 70 while my friend received 75?" asked Konglarp Tinnakorn na Ayutthaya, of Triam Udom Suksa School. He said many of his friends were experiencing similar problems.
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