High Stakes Testing and International Schools Are Like Coke and Diet Coke.
I am going to talk a bit about what "High Stakes Testing" means for two International schools. One in Beijing, China and one in Cairo, Egypt. Both schools cater to the moneyed elites in their countries and both are considered to be second or third-tier schools. The schools exist as an alternative for the national system of public education which have extremely high pressure and high stakes exams in the form of the Chinese Gaokao and the Egyptian General Secondary Certificate. In China, the Gaokao is taken over the course of 2-3 days by around nine million students each year (Wong, 2015). The Egyptian General Secondary Certificate exams are spread out over a three week period in late June/early July (the exact time depends on the time of the holy month of Ramadan for a given year). About 450,000 students a year take the exams (AlTawy, 2014) . The stakes for both exams are high. The Gaokao determines which tier university a student is eligible for (China Central Televisio...