The Cambodia-Australia National Examinations Project (CANEP) was completed in September after six years. The project, managed jointly by ACER and IDP Education Australia, assisted the Cambodian government to reform the country's examinations system.

CANEP was conducted in partnership with the Examinations Office of the Secondary Education Department (SED) in the Cambodian Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport with funding from the Australian Government's overseas aid agency (AusAID).

The project began in 1997 following a request made by the Cambodian Government to the Australian Government for assistance in improving the reliability and validity of examinations in the education system, particularly at Grade 12, the final school-leaving exam. It was originally scheduled to run for five years, concluding in 2002 but additional funding was provided to extend the project until September 2003.

The specific objectives of the project were to provide infrastructure to support the efficient and secure handling and administration of the national examinations; improve the quality of the examination papers and marking processes of the grades 9 and 12 examinations and; facilitate the review and development of examinations and other educational policies on the basis of reliable data and research.

ACER provided reports to the Ministry that analysed and evaluated examination administration training, research method training, English language training, educational research and policy advice and infrastructure support and development.

According to ACER's project director for CANEP, Mr McCurry, the project has contributed greatly to capacity building in the Examinations Office.

"CANEP had a significant impact on the development of using grade 12 results for entry to higher education and giving the results of year 12 an increased status for both higher education institutions and prospective employers," he said. "The project has made a major contribution to the reform of the exam system in Cambodia."

CANEP initiatives included:

Development of an exam Item Bank at Grade 12

• The CANEP Item Bank is a sophisticated computer program which facilitates exam design and assists exam setters in the preparation of high quality exams.The program allows the user to add new exam questions (known as 'items') to the bank, to retrieve items from the bank in order to set an exam, and to archive previous exam papers. The program will format an examination paper with the appropriate headers, number the questions automatically and print the paper and marking scheme in a form which is ready for copyprinting. Items are stored and exam papers produced in secure conditions.

• There are currently over 1,000 Grade 12 exam items in the bank and the Item Bank was used to set 9 of the 10 Grade 12 exam papers in 2003 in secure conditions. CANEP's Item Bank legacy includes an item writing and quality review process, trained item writers and database operators, a fully functioning Item Bank for the Grade 9 and Grade 12 exams, and an Item Bank which was trialled during the 2002 exams and more fully utilised in setting the 2003 exams.

Trial of standards of performance for 2003 exams

• The introduction of standards of performance will move the examinations towards a more performance-based system of setting grades.   Until now, pass grades in the examinations have not been related to a published standard of performance.  

• At a CANEP workshop on standards of performance held in February this year,   subject specialists in the Ministry developed standards of performance for every subject in the Grade 12 examination.   Mr John Ward, the former CEO of the New South Wales Board of Studies, was guest presenter at the CANEP workshop.   Among the outputs from the workshop was a set of performance descriptions for each pass grade in every Grade 12 exam subject, which have been revised, honed and presented in a common format.   These standards of performance have been trialled for the Grade 12 examinations in 2003 and the Ministry will consider the implications of the trial to assist in making a decision on implementation for the 2004 exams.  

• CANEP has already exceeded the project target in relation to standards of performance for 2003. The results of the 2003 trial of standards of performance will be critical in demonstrating that open and accessible standards will provide more objective criteria than the arbitrary determination of pass grades.  

Use of Grade 12 results for entry to higher education

Until 2002, students sat separate entry tests to higher education after taking the Grade 12 exam. CANEP made a highly significant contribution to the policy debate within the Ministry of Education on using the Grade 12 examination for entry to higher education. As a result of this debate, in May 2002 the Council of Ministers approved the use of Grade 12 exam results for the selection of students to higher education institutions and specialised studies from 2002 onwards.

Certification

CANEP has promoted measures to strengthen the Grade 12 exam and to give the results increased status, not only in higher education institutions, but also to students and potential employers. The following changes to the Grade 12 certificate were introduced in 2002:

• individual subject results included on the Grade 12 Certificate in five Grades   (A - E)
• a change from three pass grades overall at Grade 12 (A, B and C) to five   (A - E)
• the overall percentile rank shown on the certificate
• a Certificate of Achievement awarded to students who fail the grade 12 exam overall but pass in one or more individual subjects
• overall grade descriptions printed on the back of the certificate in English and Khmer.

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