Examinations and stress : childhood and education subverted

Abstract

Psychologists, sociologists, and educationists generally have been pointing out for some time now that stress is not a phenomenon that is experienced solely by adults, but that children are subject to it as well (Varma, 1973; Elkind, 1981; Markham, 1982). Ironically enough, one of the most significant stressors in a child's life is school (Jackson, 1968; Hargreaves, 1972; Pringle, 1975). Indeed, the school can be a source of stress when it presents the child with an unfavourable environment, be this physical (e.g. an architecture that is insensitive to children with special needs) or psychological (e.g. bullying). The fact that the law compels students to be at school can be experienced as a stressful phenomena by those who fail to find meaning or fulfilment in formal education. For these students particularly, but also for motivated students more generally, examinations - together with the streaming, selection and channelling processes that mark school systems in several countries (Gray and Freeman, 1988) - represent a source of collective anxiety (Gaudry and Spielberger, 1971). Systems of selection put a great deal of emphasis on academic achievement as the basis for discrimination between different students. In those systems where such selection takes place early on in a child's career at school, there is a concomitant early focus on achievement, gauged via formal assessment procedures such as examinations. Elkind (1981) among many others, points out that this orientation is a source of stress for children whose sense of selfworth becomes tied up with achievement. Furthermore, young students are often under great pressure to cope with early intellectual attainment, so that in Elkind's view, competitive school systems that are too 'product oriented' make the child grow up too fast, too soon. Several authors have documented the extent to which Malta's educational system is in fact predicated on systematic processes of selection, channelling and exclusion (Sultana, 1989, 1992; Zamrnit Mangion, 1992; Wain' et aI., 1995). That process starts early on in a child's life, so that at the end of the fourth year of the primary school, students have to sit national examinations and, on the basis of the results they obtain, are channelled to different streams. Those in the top streamis are more likely to pass the eleven-plus examination, and are therefore directed towards the more academically prestigious' Junior Lyceums' , while the others proceed to other schools, namely 'Area Secondaries' or 'Opportunity Centres'. The processes of selection and exclusion are extended further by the fact that a strong non-state education sector operates in parallel to government education provision. Children of primary school age compete in order to get a place in the much sought-after church or independent schools. The result is that, in the words of the Consultative Committee's report Tomorrow's Schools (Wain et al., 1995), a culture of 'competitive achievement' is generated, one that conditions teachers to teach towards examinations, that pressures parents to emphasise academic achievement above all else, and that causes stress on students as they struggle to gain entry into those spaces that are publicly perceived to be more rewarding and prestigious. The result of such a stress on achievement as is formally assessed by competitive examinations has a number of negative effects, subverting both the educational process and childhood itself. Under these conditions, education tends to be reduced to the passive consumption and reproduction of 'inert' knowledge. Children's welfare suffers under the constant stress where education is associated with the pressure to 'perform'. The purpose of this article is to document the stress that the Maltese educational system generates in children at the primary school age, specifically those in a Junior Lyceum bound sixth year class. In focusing on such a group, it is my intention to show the extent to which the streaming, selection and channelling processes that are employed not only subvert the meaning of education, but also represent a serious threat to young children's well-being and sense of worth.