Introduction

3 How it works 3.2 Give contents to grades and certificates Today's grades are given at one point of time that is fixed for everyone regardless whether the person has met the target or not. Certificates are issued that show a student's ability at that point of time. It is not taken into account that forgetting is human and that some might do better if given more time. It seems ever so unfair that the student's level of proficiency at that particular point of time is marking him for the rest of his life. It is also a waste of resources since much is taught insufficiently and will not be used in the end at all. Would it not be wiser to follow through a student's learning process until he or she has really completed what was started? Some countries use a comparative strategy in order to sort out the best of every batch and let them go on and discard the rest. Other countries want all students to pass and go on to a higher level and their strategy is to put the minimum for a pass as low as possible. My goals when designing the grading and testing system below have been to not deem a student's capability at one point of time but rather continuously to ensure that he is not allowed to forget what he has been taught before (that would be a waste of resources) and to give a fair and detailed account of his knowledge so that institutions for higher education and employers will be able to consider the important details rather than an average figure. This will help students that are good at what they are interested in but not so good in other subjects. And it will help employers pick the right persons for a job. 3.2.1 Grades Many different system are used for grading around the world, each with the ambition to be as accurate as possible in describing a students proficiency in a subject. Some are designed to make the student work hard, some are designed to let every student pass, some are designed to just account for the students knowledge. But one must keep in mind the reason why grades are given. Some systems are comparative, that is, they force a teacher to give out the whole range of grades in one batch according to a percentage key (for example, the top five percent get the highest grade, the next ten percent the second highest and so on). This is to create an atmosphere of competition among students to spur them to learn harder. Yet, I feel that grades are too important to be abused as a tool to pressure students; other methods can be used for this purpose. Also, this system is highly unfair as it does not account for the actual proportions in the students' ability; if a class is good in general, there will be students that unjustified receive a lower grade just because somebody has to receive it; likewise in a class with a lower average of proficiency, students will be graded higher than they deserve. This is not fair since it imposes unequal workload on students that deserve the same grade and it also leaves employers and it is furthermore most useless for employers or tertiary educational institutions that are left with a ranking of applicants that is basically mixed up (since better students of one batch get lower grades as bad students of another batch). This type of grading was used in Sweden until 1994 and is still in use at the National University of Singapore (even if one wants to use grades as a 'baite' for students to work harder, this should not be the case for tertial education anymore; by then students should know the importance of studying and it is highly unfair since one's academic grades are truly the ones that count for the rest of one's life). Due to these disadvantages and as an educational system that focuses on individuals will run lectures independently of a fixed batch or group of students, a comparative grading system is out of the question. Lowering the minimum target for a pass is not an optimal solution either as it does not require the broad majority of students to give their best and thus lowers the proficiency of the whole population of students. In the ideal case, subjects will be divided into modules and moments in such a way that for each moment, a student can only receive a pass or else the moment is not regarded as finished. An example of a module would be 'World War II' and some of its moments could be 'General Introduction', 'France in WWII', 'D-Day' or 'The Allies'. In present educational systems those would all be compressed under the title 'History for Grade 9', a general grade would be given at the end of the year, not recognizing the special interest of some students. It is obvious that as long as subjects are graded in 'bundles' of topics (some not even belonging to the same department at a institution for tertiary education) grading can never be accurate enough to be fair and practical and the straightforward option of a pass only system cannot be applied. But once subjects are divided into moments, applicants of higher education or jobs have the choice to submit only grades of those subjects that are relevant and a fairer and more detailed evaluation of applicants can be practiced . Considering that we are now in a modern age of computing and data organization, the amount of details we get for a certificate is no longer a problem, neither in issuing or evaluating a certificate. 3.2.2 Tests Present day tests or examinations are a tool to measure a student's knowledge at one point of time. After an examination a topic is often put aside and forgotten if not revised. This leads to the total unreliability of grades over time. Worse, they mark a topic as closed and do not give students with low grades the chance to touch up on their knowledge after the test. This will leave them with that grade and at that level of knowledge. Nothing is gained and the small part of the topic that actually has been learned is just a matter of wasted time, effort and resources since, out of context, it cannot be used further. However, some teachers or institutions use tests throughout the semester to keep students studying continuously. This is a more appropriate use, yet not optimal since as long as long as the test results are counted in some form of final grade. The most justified use of tests in my opinion is to check how far the student has come in the process of learning so that gaps can be detected and overcome. For this purpose tests should be long, exhausting the full range of the topic. 3.2.3 Withdrawal and maintenance of grades It is essential that a grade has a true meaning, otherwise it might as well not exist. So, what happens if a student once obtained a grade but over time forgets about the contents of that module and being tested about it later would get a much lower grade? Sane reasoning says that the grade should be declared invalid and withdrawn from the student. This is a sad process though and a persons knowledge is preferably maintained so that at a later test, the grade will still be the same and can be kept valid. In the perfect system tests will be used to check where knowledge needs to be touched up and refreshed and action will be taken accordingly so that resources are not wasted teaching students a lot of things which they will forget later on. This will automatically ensure that people are capable of doing things that their certificates state them capable of doing which is most important to make the economy work as efficiently as possible. 3.1 Focus on the individual 3.3 High quality staff 3.4 Go global! 3.5 What about financial resources?