Students cool to Grade 12 exams

Van SUN Blog Janet Steffenhagen

Many B.C. students are choosing not to write Grade 12 provincial exams, apart from the one that's still required for graduation, the Kelowna Daily Courier reports. Only about half of senior students wrote provincial exams in 2007-08, down significantly from a few years ago when most students wrote the exams. This is no surprise, given that most post-secondary institutions no longer require students to submit provincial exam marks when they're applying for admission. The trend began in Central Canada and spread to B.C. last year. Now, even the U of A and the U of C have told B.C. students they needn't bother with the exams. "This doesn't mean we are lowering our standards for admission - not at all," Sharon McCoubrey, chair of the UBC Okanagan's admission committee, is quoted as saying.

B.C. universities have said they needed to drop the requirement in order to compete with Quebec and Ontario schools for top students. They also said it was unfair to force B.C. students to write provincials when students in Ontario are not required to do so. Provincial exams used to account for 40 per cent of a students' final mark, with 60 per cent coming from teachers. Now class marks will be king.B.C. changed its graduation program several years ago to require five provincial exams - three in Grade 10, one in Grade 11 and one in Grade 12.

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