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The Zionist Enterprise: This is how the Secure Matriculation Testing Center works Israel today

2020-06-01T16:03:12.308Z


Just before the matriculation season: A glimpse at the Matriculation Examination Center (MBA), which the Corona Shadow now has to conduct a complex operation than ever before | Education


Questionnaires written months in advance • A lot of secrecy to maintain exam purity • Sophisticated scanning mechanism • And the fateful test, which will decide what the score will be • A moment before the matriculation season: a glimpse at the Matriculation Examination Center (MBA), which the Corona shadow now has to conduct a complex operation

Just before the high school matriculation exams, we got a rare glimpse into the secure area where everything happens - the carpenter, the sophisticated and secure matriculation exam.

Preparation of exams and printing

A confidential committee writes, the printing process is secure and photographed

The matriculation exam is written 6-5 months before its actual existence. The exam is written by a confidential committee, whose composition is approved by the Supervisor of Professional Affairs (CMC). In the same class, the answers of the exam, based on which the students are supposed to score, are written. Then, to test the level, two "examining teachers" solve it. "They do not teach that year, took no part in her writing process and do not know each other's identities. At the end they express their opinion on her - whether it was too easy or too difficult, simple or complex, and make comments. At this point, the committee that composed the exam meets again , And sometimes decides to change the text of the exam according to the comments, after which the questionnaire is finalized and then confidentially issued to the government printer, where the matriculation exams are printed. 

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The matriculation exams are printed securely about a month before the maturity date. Earlier, each school made sure to order the number of exams it required for each profession, depending on the number of students taking the same exam. The questionnaires are sent to each school in dedicated packaging. To avoid mistakes, make sure to separate when printing exams in different subjects; For example, between printing the matriculation exam in history and the printing of the biology exam, one-day separation is maintained. 

A similar step has also been taken to avoid confusion between questionnaires (for example, between 3 mathematics study units and 5 units in the same profession): between printing and printing, there is a one-hour break, which eventually checks that no questionnaire has not been accidentally filed in a package that does not belong to it. The process, to be sure, is filmed throughout. 

Storing the questionnaires and sending them to school

Huge safes, rigorous sorting and army of overseers in millions of shekels 

After printing, the matriculation questionnaires are transferred to two huge national safes - one is in Lod, the other in Holon. No one should enter the vaults and be exposed to the content of the exams. The giant safes are sent to 1,350 high schools, each holding their own dedicated safes where the questionnaires are kept. These are sent to schools only a few days before the exam. 

The two missions are being sent by 40 couriers, who inform the high school of their arrival only half an hour before their arrival. "There is a barcode for each exam package, and couriers put it in a specific vault," explains the education department's David Gal, director of the bar, "If the questionnaire barcode is not matched, the system is alerted and an investigation is conducted, which may end up with the courier company. The reason is clear: If, for example, an English matriculation questionnaire, which is scheduled to begin at 4 p.m., is entered into the questionnaire vault that exams it at 2 p.m. — the questionnaire will be exposed too soon, meaning "leakage." High for maximum purity of dimensions. " 

The new, sophisticated mechanism controls about 1,350 school safes, allowing them to be opened shortly before the exam. In schools where there has been a violation of exam purity in the past, safes will be opened right at the beginning of the exam, often no more than 20 minutes before. The day of the exam, as one might conclude, is a real military operation: in the matriculation exams in the major subjects, such as math and English, the Ministry of Education recruits about 17,000 overseers at a cost of millions of shekels - all to maintain the purity of the exams.

Determine the score and reveal the results

Two "many" teachers? The third one takes

Teachers check the exams in a secure system without knowing any details about the identity of the examiner. They enter the score for each question, and the system issues a final score. After the teacher finishes examining the notebook, she goes through another examination with another examiner - who does not know the identity of the previous examiner, nor what grade was given. The grade obtained by the student is the average of the grades given by the two examining teachers. If there is a significant gap between the grades given by the two teachers, the exam passes to a third teacher who is a senior assessor, and the grade is calculated according to formula. 

The examining teachers receive NIS 50-30 for the notebook, and the Ministry of Education spends about NIS 200 million a year for checking about 3.5 million from examination companies (this number includes not only matriculation exams, but also final theses and other deliverables). The grades are fed into the Ministry of Education system, but they are not published until the examination of all matriculation exams is completed that year. Exceptions are the math and English grades that are published relatively quickly so that students can access second-year dates. 

Throughout the process, exam companies do not leave the carpenter, and almost no one has access to it. At the end of the test, they are archived. Every few months a grinding machine is destroyed, which destroys the exams - inside the compound itself.



Scanning the exams and consolidating the answers

The teachers are waiting for the sample results

When the matriculation exam is over, two people - one a school employee, the other an external "faithful exam" - take the exams and deposit them at various absorption stations across the country. At the reception station, the exams on which the student ID numbers are scanned one by one. From there they are transferred to the crawler's room, located in Lod in Lod. 

Each matriculation notebook undergoes a "smart scan" and becomes a file saved in a secure system. One notebook's scan time is only one minute, and in the future will allow scanners to pass on one notebook without more than 15 Approximately 30 second-floor scanning technicians work on the second floor, but due to the spread of the Corona virus, they are split up and work in separate buildings. 

After the notebooks and answers have been scanned, some 500-300 notebooks of students from around the country and from all sectors are sampled. Of the answers: A group of examiners reads the solved questionnaires, examines how they dealt with the questions and what was difficult, and then decides which answers to receive (even if they were not included in the original answer form). A computerized system of matriculation exams between the examining teachers. 



Source: israelhayom

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