Qatar Senior School Certificate for Independent Schools

Qatar Senior School Certificate (QSSC) for independent schools QSSC for the 12 graders measures what the students have gained and learned, through "external tests" administered by the Evaluation Institute, and “internal assessment activities” administered by the teacher under the supervision of the school, to insure constructive and comprehensive assessment.

Those two types of assessments go along together to achieve the objectives of secondary school certificate without one dominating over the other. In spite of the relative difference between the two assessments, the merging of both of them provides more accurate and realistic result about the student’s achievements and performance. Therefore, the QSSC program emphasizes the use of external test as a tool for measurement without overlooking the importance of the teacher’s role in the internal assessment process, which is supervised by QSSC unit. The QSSC Unit monitors the internal activities for each school by a local team specialized in the curricula that follow the standards of the Supreme Education Council for grade 12 externally tested subjects at independent senior schools.

Introducing external assessment see the PowerPoint
The QSSC is a joined responsibility between the different parties that contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the initiative of developing education in independent schools by reinforcing independency of schools through adopting their own special assessment programs and strengthening the teachers’ professional standards through involving the teacher directly in the evaluation activities and enhancing the SEC role in supporting all that to promote confidence in the initiative.

Key Concepts of the Certificate
The senior certificate external test is considered a supporting test for the role of the school and not an independent test. This is due to the belief that one sole test can not cover all the information and skills the student learned or acquired. This approach is based on the efficiency of the teacher and his ability to guide students through the academic school year toward deeper and richer teaching and learning, which may enable the teachers to classify the students’ educational level.

The role of the external test is to support the assessment process in giving more realistic and accurate picture on the level of the overall performance of the students and what they are capable of. This is a global trend that many countries started to adopt in their educational systems to reach maximum fairness and objectivity there is in assessing students capacities and potential and to measure their level of attainment accurately.

External tests basically facilities the comparison between schools, where the evaluation process reflects the teachers’ performance in teaching and school results for students performance showing the level of effort invested in developing education in the State of Qatar through knowledgeable practice to the initiative principles: Autonomy, accountability, diversity and choice.

1. Objectives of the Program:
   • Ensure the development of educational outcomes and its continuity.
   • Evaluate the performance of grade 12 students in a fair way, in order to achieve objectivity, consistency and validity.
   • Promote the role of teachers in the school internal assessment.
   • Form comprehensive and integrated picture of the students’ performance and various achievements in the secondary stage.

2. Program’s Basic Principles

   • Stressing the importance of the internal assessment in the school and the external assessment of the Evaluation Institute of the Supreme Education Council.
   • Fairness and objectivity in the internal and external evaluation process
   • Promote the process of a formative and final evaluation of students’ performance in school, enabling teachers to optimize time and effort utilization in developing the educational process
   • The external assessment encourages the teacher to enable students to acquire learning skills through the implementation of better assessment criteria.
   • Promoting the principles of fair competition at students level as well as schools level to achieve the best results.

3. Components of the Program

   1. The Technical Aspect
      • Nature of the External Test
        • Develop external tests in accordance with the basic curriculum standards of the seven subjects (Arabic - English - Mathematics –Islamic studies – Biology – Chemistry – physics).
        • Develop external tests based on grade 12 standards in the seven subjects.
        • Construct the questions of Science in one test paper that includes each of the three branches of Science separately.
        • Science tests will be according to foundation level.

      • Language of the External Test:
        • Both Mathematics and Science tests will be in English, including Arabic translation, and answer will be in the language which the student chooses on the side of the questions paper written in English.

      • Questions Patterns:
        • The test includes multiple choice questions as well as essay questions and questions that require short answers, depending on the nature of the subject.

      • Test Duration
        • Duration of each test is four and a half hours

      • Percentage of the Result
        • 40% is allocated to the internal school assessments and 60% for the external test.

      • Monitoring, Follow-up and Approval of Schools’ Internal Assessments:
        • A specialized team of Subject Assessment Judges (SAJs) will be in charge of monitoring and follow-up process of the formative and final evaluations and the additional achievements of the students in schools.
        • Accrediting school results according to the assessment criteria which is adopted by the SAJs during school visits

      • Assessment Criteria:
        • The Evaluation Institute develops criteria for the internal assessment and provides it to the schools.
        • The Evaluation Institute also provides schools with the evaluation criteria of students’ additional distinguishing achievements.
        • In addition, it provides the descriptions and standards of the seven subjects which include:
          1. Arabic language
          2. English Language
          3. Islamic Studies
          4. Biology
          5. Chemistry
          6. Physics

   2. The Administrative Aspect
      • The Role of The Senior School Certificate Unit at the Evaluation Institute
        • Develop external tests in the seven subjects.
        • Promote Awareness of the Certificate Program among stakeholders including schools, universities, embassies and others.
        • Formation of Supervision and Coordination team from the Evaluation Institute and Schools.
        • Formation of monitoring and scoring committee.
        • Follow-up the implementation of the tasks of the committees and work teams.
        • Preparation of the Regulations for the work of school committees.
        • Preparation of necessary materials for collecting information on students and schools.
        • Entry of school data.
        • Accreditation of school data.
        • Processing of internal and external results in preparation for the issuance of the certificate.
        • The issuance and ratification of the certificate.

      • School Role

        • Identify the internal coordinators of the school according to the following criteria:
        • Personal characteristics of leadership.
        • Ability to use technology.
        • Adequate experience in that field.
        • Quick achievement.
        • Accuracy in data entry
        • Implementation of the school evaluation plan.
        • Timely provide the Evaluation Institute with all required information and data of the school and students.
        • Update data regularly.
        • Adhere to the timeline set by the Evaluation Institute in all works.
        • Documenting evidence on students’ performance and distinguishing achievements.
        • Facilitate the work of the SAJs.
        • Facilitate the work of the supervision and coordination team.
        • The internal coordinators shall support the grade 12 teaching staff in all the procedures of the certificate.
        • Nominating members of the monitoring and scoring committees
        • Nominating members of the school's internal tests management committee.
        • Regularly raising students’, parents’, and the Board of Trustees’ awareness of the Senior School Certificate Program.
        • Provide all necessary facilities to ease the certificate's procedures in all aspects.
        • Regularly communicate with the Senior School Certificate Unit of the Evaluation Institute.
        • Verifying the accuracy of students’ names and matching them with the official documents (Passport or Identity Card) to be quadruple names (Student’s name, Father’s name, Grandfather’s name, and Surname).

4. Certificate Components

   1. Certificate Format
      • First Page Contains:
        • Name of student and school
        • Logo of the Certificate
        • Student's Overall Score
        • Student's overall score in each of the seven subjects separately
        • Stamp of the Supreme Education Council
        • Signature of the Director of the Evaluation Institute

      • Second Page Contains:
        • Name of student and school.
        • Names of studied subjects.
        • Student's result in each subject.
        • Description of the used range for grades evaluation.
        • Additional distinguished achievements accomplished by the student at the school level.
        • Stamp of the Evaluation Institute.

   2. Certificate Language
      • A two-face certificate in Arabic and another one in English, certified by the Evaluation Institute.

   3. Number of Copies Given to the Student
      • 2 copies in Arabic language
      • 2 copies in English language

   4. Tests Dates
      • The Senior School Certificate tests begin on May 12 2009.
      • Tests will be conducted in seven consecutive days with three rest days in between (Friday-Saturday-Tuesday).
      • Tests Timetable, as follows
      • Tuesday May 12: Biology
      • Wednesday May 13: Arabic
      • Thursday May 14: Chemistry
      • Sunday May 17: Mathematics
      • Monday May 18: Islamic Studies
      • Tuesday May 19: Recess
      • Wednesday May 20: Physics
      • Thursday May 21: English Language

5. Issuance of the Certificate

   • The certificates are dispatched to each school separately
   • The school distributes the certificates to students
   • For students who wish to study abroad, emphasize the necessity of authenticating the Certificate from the Foreign Ministry and from the embassy of the respective country.
   • Additional copies or replacements of the certificate are issued by the Certificate Unit at the Evaluation Institute in return for nominal fees.

6. Makeup Exam

   • The Evaluation Institute will hold external makeup exams for students with valid absence excuse after providing the Institute with a proof of that excuse.
   • The makeup exams will be held in the week following the external exams and with the same timetable.