The 13,441 students facing the University Entrance Exam (PAU) this week in Galicia went to the 36 venues set up in 10 localities this Thursday, wondering if they would again experience situations of tension and absurdity like those suffered so far in tests such as Technical Drawing and History of Spain. The controversy that arose among students, families, and teachers forced the CIUG (Interuniversity Commission of Galicia) on Wednesday afternoon to rectify and apologize for multiple detected failures.
Read more Do you know where Sullivan is?
The biggest errors, though not the only ones (because there were also problems and complaints in Physics and Art History), occurred in Technical Drawing. Teachers of this subject from several centers throughout the community have filed a formal complaint with the CIUG and have requested an investigation and the resignation of those responsible for the test due to “multiple errors” in the exam statements. The high school teachers want the working group in the CIUG and its director to leave, because they consider that “they are not up to the circumstances” and that the “multiple incidents” generated “confusion and insecurity” and a “high level of anxiety” in those who had chosen this subject to improve their grade. These are the students who aspire to enter Fundamentals of Architecture, Building, or engineering.
“The successive clarifications and corrections meant a loss of more than half an hour for numerous students who were forced to restart exercises already begun. Many of them had already started the exercises and were forced to erase, rectify or restart,” the teachers reproach in their complaint. At the same time, they denounce “unequal conditions,” because some students left before all corrections were communicated, while in other cases later errors were not clarified so as not to harm those who had already left.
Specifically, the document details a list of deficiencies that include graphic errors such as the absence of hidden lines in perspective exercises; the use of scales that led to “inadequate” decimal values for the level evaluated; a “disproportionate” workload for the available time and “lack of clarity in the structure of the options.” “The exam does not sufficiently explicitly identify the options that students must choose, forcing them to interpret the structure of the test and increasing the possibility of selection errors in a moment of high tension,” the teachers state in their complaint filed on Wednesday. In the case of students who chose the test in Galician, the damage was even greater, because there were drafting errors that generated additional problems.
Read more The actress Carmen Machi, National Film Award
“A statement that should not be there”
In response, the CIUG issued a statement in which it “deeply regrets” what happened and acknowledges two errors in the statements of the Technical Drawing test. The first error was located in the statement of section 2.1 of the Galician version, “where there was a phrase at the beginning of the statement that should not have been there.” An incident that generated doubts among the applicants about the mandatory nature or choice of the sections, which forced a second clarification. The second error detected, as reported, consisted of the inclusion of an additional horizontal projection (A1) in section 3.1, which was also ordered to be eliminated during the first half hour of the exam.
“These were the facts that we deeply regret and that were amended during the course of the test, with the extension of half an hour in duration” to 120 minutes. According to the CIUG, students have already been informed that these issues will be taken into account in the correction. “We especially regret that the error occurred in the statement in Galician, given the commitment of this working group to the language and culture of the country,” concluded the team responsible for drafting the exam, which, however, will not be repeated. The CIUG will inform all members of the Evaluation Commission of the incidents that occurred during the test “and others that may be detected during the correction of the exams,” it concludes.
Another subject that has generated, for the moment, more controversy has been History of Spain. Several educational centers requested, for this reason, resignations or dismissals among those responsible and that the failures of the CIUG drafting team itself do not harm the students. In a statement, the teachers speak of “total ignorance” of the test structure or “gross negligence” on the part of the team members. One of the alternatives for question 2, which proposed a comparison between socialism and anarchism, was not in accordance with the CIUG instructions on which educational centers base their exam preparation. In addition, question 4 asked to develop the Transition from an economic perspective, something that was also not included. The response from the History of Spain working group acknowledges that “confusion” could have been generated, but argues that the objective of the question was for students to focus on the “ideological.” It also states that the exam will be corrected with “flexible criteria” so as not to harm anyone.
