Three-Digit Number

The word ‘assessment’ has a lot of baggage. It elicits many emotions in the assessors and evokes more in the ones being assessed. Students (if you’re a teacher, you were once a student) generally dislike assessments.

In my final year at high school, we seniors had to sit exams to determine our abilities for tertiary education. It didn’t matter if you wanted to study medicine, law, education, or the arts. You sat the same exam—nothing related to the school subjects we were taking.

Following the assessment, the school authorities issued each student a three-digit number based on performance. The number was called the Tertiary Entrance Score, or TE Score for short. Twelve years of schooling were reduced to a score out of 999. The higher the number, the more likely you’d be offered the tertiary course of your choice.

The practice had persisted for years. My senior year was the last cohort to sit the exams. Two days of testing. Two days of make or break. Two days to decide your desired pathway to university. There were no other avenues.

To compound the indignity, results were published in local newspapers. Okay, for those who scored well. Not so for those who didn’t. I wonder how many doctors, lawyers, teachers, architects (and every other university-trained vocation) we missed having because of a three-digit number.