“The system ran into a technical issue presented near the end of the exam. A large share of the students started uploading the answers to the intermediate examination at the same time,” explains the spokesperson. Students were concerned that their answers hadn’t transferred, but this wasn’t the case. “They have been stored correctly.”
The students who had been allotted extra time were mainly hindered by the fact that they couldn’t enter anything until the online examination system was back on track. This issue affected around 40 students, on a total of 900 examinees. “To ensure that students are hampered as little as possible by this setback, after consulting with the Examination Board, we’ve decided to offer the opportunity to resit the intermediate exam,” says the spokesperson.
Confidence
A ‘fairly large share of the students’ took advantage of this opportunity, according to the spokesperson. “That’s because only the highest of the two exam marks would be recorded in the students’ results.” The resit didn’t present any technical issues, since this time the students sat the intermediate exam in small groups, one group after the other. “This prevented the system from stalling,” notes the spokesperson.
The software supplier is currently looking into the uploading issue. Apart from that, ESE is satisfied with the Sowiso system. “We had a very short timeframe within which to set up our online education and online examination facilities. As a result, we weren’t able to test every single aspect of the various systems. We’d like to emphasise that within the Accounting subject, this platform presents very good options for online education and assessment,” concludes the spokesperson.
