secondary school examinations in maldives

International Journal of Educational Development 21 (2001) 231–244www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedudev

The dialectic of the international and the national: secondaryschool examinations in Maldives

Mark Bray a,*, Khadeeja Adamb

a Comparative Education Research Centre, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong, Chinab Department of Public Examinations, Ministry of Education, Male, Maldives

Abstract

This article is framed within the context of literatures on small states, examination systems, and international depen-dence and independence. It focuses on a country with a population of just 260,000, and analyses tensions concerningthe nature and operations of external examinations for secondary school students. Maldives has long had links with aUK-based examination board. Although in the past these links have served Maldives well, they came under increasingscrutiny during the 1990s. The article analyses issues and tensions with particular reference to the potentially competingdesires for international recognition of qualifications and national control of curriculum. 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd.All rights reserved.

Keywords:Maldives; Examinations; Dependency; National self-determination

1. Introduction

This article, included in a special issue of thejournal which focuses on education in small states,addresses a tension commonly felt by small stateseven more strongly than medium-sized and largestates. This tension is between the demands forinternational linkages and membership of the widercommunity on the other hand, and for self-determi-nation and national identity on the other hand. Thecomparative education textbook edited by Arnoveand Torres (1999) takes as its sub-title ‘the dialec-tic of the global and the local’. This paper takes

* Corresponding author. Tel.:+852-2859-2414; fax:+852-2517-4737.

E-mail address:[email protected] (M. Bray).

0738-0593/01/$ - see front matter 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.PII: S0738 -0593(00 )00031-6

as its main title a variation of that theme, namelythe dialectic of the international and the national.

The paper focuses on one of the world’s smalleststates: the Republic of Maldives. Although Mal-dives has a vast area of sea, covering about100,000 square kilometres, it has only 300 squarekilometres of land and a population of just260,000. The article is contextualised in the frame-work of literature on education in small states (e.g.Bacchus and Brock, 1993; Bray and Packer, 1993;Crossley and Holmes, 1999), as well as the litera-ture on globalisation, dependency and nationalself-determination (e.g. Watson, 1984; Lopez andStohl, 1989; Ilon, 1997). Within the education sec-tor, the paper focuses on the examinations takenby students in secondary schools, which have alsobeen the focus for previous comparative study (e.g.Eckstein and Noah, 1993; Bray and Steward,1998). The paper is only concerned with examin-

232 M. Bray, K. Adam / International Journal of Educational Development 21 (2001) 231–244

ations which are set by external bodies, i.e. outsideindividual secondary schools, rather than withinternal school examinations.

The article begins by outlining issues identifiedin the existing literature on education in smallstates, including the sub-section of the literaturewhich has explicitly focused on examinations. Thediscussion then moves to background informationon Maldives, before turning specifically to theissues which the Maldivian government and gen-eral public have faced in the matter of secondaryschool examinations. The article highlights ten-sions between demands for local control of curricu-lum on the one hand, and for international port-ability of educational qualifications on the other. Italso notes personnel constraints and other factorswhich affect operation of an examination systemin a small country, and comments on ways inwhich an examination board located in a Europeancountry does and does not meet the needs of a cli-ent in a very different part of the world. In sodoing, the paper explores a strand which has impli-cations for wider understanding of dependency andnational self-determination, and of the dialectic ofinternationalism and nationalism in settings ofparticular types.

2. Education and examination systems insmall states

A cross-national survey shows a range of modelsfor secondary school examination systems in smallstates. Particularly pertinent to the present paperare the models used in Commonwealth countries,of which Maldives is one, since these countrieshave commonalities derived from British coloniallegacies (Bray, 1998a).

The Commonwealth Secretariat has a particularconcern for small states since 28 of the 54 mem-bers of the Commonwealth have populations below1.5 million. Since 1985, the Commonwealth Sec-retariat has sponsored a number of meetings tofocus on educational issues in the member stateswhich have small populations (Crossley andHolmes, 1999). Two of these meetings havefocused on examination systems. One was held inBarbados in 1996 (Commonwealth Secretariat,

1996), and included a paper specifically on Mal-dives (Waheed, 1996). The other meeting was heldin New Zealand two years later (CommonwealthSecretariat, 1998). Some of the issues addressed,for example about techniques of testing, norm ver-sus criterion referencing, and backwash effects ofexamination systems on lower levels of education,were common to states of all sizes. Other issues,however, were either distinctive to small states orat least assumed a greater significance in smallstates than in medium-sized or large states. Forexample:

O States with small populations are, by definition,limited in the pool of national personnel fromwhich to draw specialist expertise. This affectsall spheres of life, including examinations.

O Small states tend to be highly personalisedsocieties in which everyone seems to knoweveryone else, and in which bureaucracies maybe less neutral than in larger states. This mayhave implications for security of examinations,and for arrangements for the grading of scripts.

O Small states may not be able to secure econom-ies of scale in the operation of examination sys-tems, and may thus encounter high unit costs.

O Allied to the previous points, small states areunlikely to have sufficient human or financialresources to undertake research into the impactof examinations, into alternative modes of test-ing, or into other important dimensions of exam-ination processes.

Of particular relevance to the present paper wasdiscussion during the Commonwealth meetings onthe tension between national self-determinationand international portability of qualifications. Thesmallest states have no national universities, andsecondary school leavers who wish to proceed touniversity study must therefore go abroad. Thismay be considered one form of dependency. Eventhe states which do have national universities haveonly small institutions which cannot cater for a fullrange of specialisms. Some states also send largenumbers of workers abroad, and rely on the work-ers’ remittances for significant proportions ofnational income. These states are anxious forschool-leaving qualifications to be recognised in

233M. Bray, K. Adam / International Journal of Educational Development 21 (2001) 231–244

the destination countries, but sometimes the desirefor external recognition conflicts with a desire fornational self-determination. External examinationboards may not be sensitive to the curricularemphases desired by the authorities in small states;and even if they are sensitive, the fact remains thatdecision-making power on an important lever forshaping education systems lies outside the respect-ive countries rather than within them.

Survey of the arrangements for secondaryschool-leaving examination systems in the smallstates of the Commonwealth reveals three mainmodels. The models are not necessarily exclusive,and in some settings all three operate side by side.The models are as follows:

O National examinations. In this model, the exam-inations are set locally. In Fiji and Nauru, forexample, the examinations are set by units in theMinistries of Education. Lesotho and Swazilandhave quasi-government examination councils;and in Malta, secondary school examinationsare set by the national university.

O Regional examinations. Some states havegrouped together to operate regional examin-ations. The three main regional bodies are theCaribbean Examinations Council (CXC), theSouth Pacific Board for Educational Assessment(SPBEA), and the West African ExaminationsCouncil (WAEC).

O Metropolitan examinations. Some small statesare clients of examination boards in larger coun-tries. In small Commonwealth states, the mostprominent such boards are based in the UnitedKingdom, which in most cases was the formercolonial country. The University of CambridgeLocal Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) isamong the most visible of the metropolitanboards. The University of London has also longplayed a comparable role. Until the mid-1990sit did this through a body called the Universityof London Examinations and Assessment Coun-cil (ULEAC). In 1996 ULEAC merged with theBusiness and Technology Education Council(BTEC) to form the Edexcel Foundation.

Study of the operation of these alternative modelsreveals many complexities. It cannot be assumed

that states which operate national examinationboards necessarily have stronger powers of self-determination than states which rely on regional ormetropolitan boards. On the one hand, smallboards which suffer the constraints of limitedexpertise and restricted budgets may not have allthe technical competence needed to tailor examin-ations effectively to meet national needs; and onthe other hand, some metropolitan boards are veryresponsive to the needs of their clients, and havedemonstrated willingness to work in partnershipwith national authorities. One example of respon-siveness is in Namibia, where UCLES operates anInternational General Certificate of SecondaryEducation (IGCSE) examination which includespapers in seven African languages. UCLES alsooperates a Higher International General Certificateof Secondary Education (HIGCSE) examinationcreated especially for Namibia and not offeredelsewhere in the world (Erasmus, 1998; van derMerwe, 1998). However, some states which usethe services of metropolitan examination boardshave less positive experiences. They may find thatthe curriculum has been less closely tailored totheir needs, and that the services consume largequantities of valuable foreign exchange.

In some settings, regional bodies may seem toprovide the best of both worlds. Where they workwell, regional bodies can tailor examinations to theneeds of the societies in which they operate, canenlarge the pool of expertise on which the smallstates can draw, can reduce unit costs througheconomies of scale, and can strengthen inter-national recognition through carefully managedpublic relations and other strategies. In other cases,however, regional bodies may seem to provide theworst of both worlds. While the CXC, SPBEA andWAEC have all matured into strong organisations,other regional examination bodies have beenunable to withstand centrifugal forces and othertensions, and have collapsed (Bray, 1998b). Thesematters do not need further exploration here, sinceMaldives has not been a partner in a regionalexamination board and seems unlikely to becomeone because it does not have close neighbours withsufficiently similar needs.


3. Maldives and its education system

The links between Maldives and the Common-wealth arise from the country’s historical status asa British protectorate. This history also explains astrong place held by the English language in thesociety and the education system. Maldives movedto independence in 1965.

Within the Maldivian economy, tourism is themost dynamic sector and accounted in 1997 forover 19 per cent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP)and more than half of total foreign exchange earn-ings (World Bank, 1999: 1). Fishing is alsoimportant, earning 10 per cent of GDP in 1997.Significant economic inputs are also derived fromforeign aid. The per capita Gross National Product(GNP) was estimated at US$1200 in 1997.

The population of Maldives is not only smallbut also scattered. The country consists of over athousand islands, of which about 200 are inhabited,spread over a large area of the Indian Ocean. How-ever, a quarter of the population lives in the capital,Male. Two factors which unify the population arereligion and language. Almost everyone in Mal-dives is a Muslim; and almost everyone speaks andwrites the national language, Dhivehi.

The school system has a 5+2+3+2 structure, i.e.five years of primary, two years of middle, threeyears of lower secondary, and two years of uppersecondary education. The primary school enrol-ment rate is in the region of 90 per cent (Maldives,1996: 6). Enrolment rates are lower at subsequentlevels of education, but substantial expansion ofprovision was achieved during the 1990s. Forexample, between 1995 and 1998, middle schoolenrolments increased by 48.5 per cent, from 16,579in 1995 to 24,624 in 1998 (Maldives, 1998: 3).Over the same period, lower secondary enrolmentsincreased by 69.3 per cent, from 6,993 to 11,845;and upper secondary enrolments increased by 33.3per cent, from 327 to 436.

Upper secondary and post-secondary educationis provided only in Male. Of the two governmentupper secondary schools, one is primarily orientedto the Islamic education system. The other, theScience Education Centre, provides Western-styleeducation and is more relevant to the present paper.Despite its name, the Science Education Centre

offers courses in arts, business and other subjectsas well as science. At the post-secondary level,until 1997 separate institutions provided training inteacher education, management and administration,and health sciences. These institutions have nowbeen merged into the Maldives College of HigherEducation. However, the country has no nationaluniversity. This means that most Maldivians whowish to undertake degree studies travel abroad,though some study at home through distance edu-cation.

4. Secondary school examinations in Maldives

4.1. Types of examinations and scale ofoperation

The majority of Maldivian pupils sit their firstexternal examinations in Grade 10, i.e. at the endof lower secondary school. At this point, they takeGeneral Certificate of Education (GCE) Ordinary(O) Level examinations administered by Edexcelin London, plus national examinations adminis-tered by the Department of Public Examinations(DPE) of the Maldivian Ministry of Education andleading to the Senior Secondary Certificate (SSC).Students who proceed to upper secondary schooltake further external examinations at the end ofGrade 12. These are the Advanced (A) Levelexaminations administered by Edexcel, andnational examinations administered by the DPEand leading to the Higher Secondary Certificate(HSC). The numbers of candidates sitting theseexaminations in 1998/99 are shown in Table 1.

At the time Maldives embarked on the link withthe London-based examination board, the strategyseemed very appropriate. Numbers of candidateswere small, the country had practically no domesticexpertise to operate examinations of this type, andinternational recognition of qualifications was evenmore important because domestic post-secondaryeducation was even more limited. Use of an exam-ination board in the United Kingdom (UK) waslogical given the country’s status as a UK colonyand the dominance of the English language in Mal-divian secondary education.

The SSC and HSC examinations are a later inno-


Table 1International and national examinations taken by secondary students, Maldives, 1998/99a

No. of candidates No. of subject-entries Date

InternationalEdexcel GCE O Level 297 320 June 1998Edexcel GCE O Level 2735 10 758 Jan. 1999Edexcel GCE A Level 344 605 June 1998UCLES First Certificate in English 274 Dec. 1998London Chamber of Commerce and Industry 262 Dec. 1998

NationalSenior Secondary Certificate 2450 4677 Dec. 1998Higher Secondary Certificate 209 418 March 1999

a Source: Department of Public Examinations, Male.

vation. Both the SSC and the HSC require examin-ation in two subjects considered essential by theMaldivian authorities and not offered by the Lon-don board. These subjects are Dhivehi and IslamicStudies. The SSC and HSC examinations wereintroduced in 1987.

In addition to these examinations, a few candi-dates take other external assessments. One schoolin Male presents pupils for the UCLES First Cer-tificate in English examination, which is also takenby some private candidates. Also, a few studentssit for the examinations in accounting and alliedsubjects set by the London Chamber of Commerceand Industry (LCCI).

4.2. The Edexcel O and A Level examinations

The Edexcel examinations are very academic inorientation. The O Level examination, for example,was originally designed in the UK and launched in1951 to select the top students who were capable ofproceeding for further academic studies in seniorsecondary education and beyond. Within the UK,O Level examinations are no longer generallytaken by secondary school students. Critics felt thatsociety and the education system were being toostrongly stratified when the academically high ach-ievers took O Levels and the academically lowachievers took Certificate of Secondary Education(CSE) examinations. UK schools have now movedto the General Certificate of Secondary Education(GCSE) examination, which covers a broaderspread of ability and talents (Gipps, 1992). The O

Level examinations taken in Maldives are a relicfrom the past UK practice, and were phased outin the UK itself after the GCSE examination waslaunched in 1988.

Before the O Level examinations were phasedout in the UK, the various UK examination boardswhich had overseas clients provided informationon the change. ULEAC indicated to Maldives andother clients that they would continue to offer OLevel examinations for them if they wished. InMaldives, a decision was made, either actively orby default, to continue with the arrangement whichseemed to be serving society well and which wasknown and generally understood by the adminis-trators and other actors in the system. However,by the late 1990s times had changed, and manyparticipants in Maldives felt a need to review thesituation (Johnston, 1998; Bray, 1999). They wereparticularly concerned about issues of cost and rel-evance, though anxious also to retain inter-national recognition.

Edexcel offers O Level examinations in what itcalls Mode 1 and Mode 2 formats. Syllabuses forMode 1 examinations are devised in London, andthe examinations are offered to all clients on astandardised basis. Mode 2 examinations are tail-ored to the circumstances of particular clients. InMaldives only one Mode 2 examination is offered,namely Fisheries Science. The syllabus wasdeveloped in Maldives (with Canadian andUNESCO assistance), but the question papers areset and marked by Edexcel examiners.

The range of subjects offered by Edexcel at O


Level at first sight seems wide. For the June 2000and January 2001 examinations, the following 32Mode 1 subjects were offered (Edexcel Foun-dation, 1999):

Accounting, Art and Design, Bengali, Biology,Chemistry, Chinese, Classical Arabic, Com-merce, Computing Studies, Economics, EnglishLanguage, English Literature, French, Geogra-phy, German, Hindi, History B (European), His-tory C (Modern World), Human Biology, Ital-ian, Malay, Maltese, Mathematics A,Mathematics B, Pure Mathematics, ModernGreek, Physics, Religious Studies, Spanish,Swahili, Turkish, and Urdu.

However, while this range might seem consider-able, in practice it is much more restricted. Forexample, it is difficult to conceive of many (or any)Maldivian students taking Bengali, Chinese, Hindi,Italian, Malay, Maltese, Modern Greek, Swahili,Turkish or Urdu.

The Maldivian Ministry of Education requiresits Grade 10 students to take a minimum of six OLevels. A few Maldivian students take as many as15, but the majority take much fewer than that. Thesubjects actually taken by Maldivian students dur-ing the years 1991 to 1999 are shown in Table 2.In the latter year, only 16 subjects were taken fromthe total Edexcel range.

Unlike the O Level examination, the A Levelexamination is still taken by many UK students.Perhaps because of this, the range of subjectsoffered by Edexcel at A Level is wider than at OLevel. The following 43 subjects were offered forJune 1999 and January 2000:

Accounting, Ancient History, Classical Arabic,Art and Design, Biology, Business Studies,Chemistry, Chinese, Computing, Economics,English Language, English Literature, French,Geography, German, Government and Politics,Graphical Communication, Classical Greek,Modern Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Modern Heb-rew, Hindi, History A, History B, History D,Human Biology, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Law,Mathematics, Pure Mathematics, Mechanics,Further Mathematics, Ndebele, Physics, Polish,

Russian, Shona, Sociology, Spanish, Turkish,and Urdu.

As at O Level, however, not all the A Level sub-jects on offer are appropriate to Maldivians. Table3 shows the actual subjects, and the number of sub-ject-entries, taken by Maldivian candidates in theyears 1991 to 1998.

5. The dialectic of the international and thenational

5.1. Benefits from existing arrangements

It is arguable that the link with ULEAC and itssuccessor, Edexcel, has served Maldives well. Thismay have been particularly the case in the earlyyears, when the Maldivian education system wasmuch smaller than the size it had reached by thelate 1990s, and when Maldives lacked sufficientavailable personnel with technical competence tooperate a strong domestic examination system. Ofcourse, even in the 1950s Maldives had a few well-educated people who, even if they were notspecialists in the task, could have designed andoperated an examination system had they beenrequired to do so. However, because such peoplewere in short supply, they were needed for moreurgent tasks elsewhere in the economy and society.The link with ULEAC served Maldives’ needs byproviding a technically sophisticated system whichled to qualifications which were recognised in mostdestination countries of importance to Maldivianswho wished to proceed for further study or otheractivities. The examination system was perhaps eli-tist and poorly related to Maldivian daily life, butthat did not matter so much when numbers weresmall and the reasons for adopting such an arrange-ment were satisfied.

In such a situation, it would seem that the bene-fits from external linkages embodied in the exam-ination system outweighed any problem that mighthave arisen. Much of the development literature inthe 1970s and 1980s stressed the need for postcol-onial countries to develop their own education sys-tems and reduce dependence on metropolitan mod-els (e.g. Ward, 1974; Fa¨gerlind and Saha, 1983;


Tab

le2

OLe

vel

subj

ect-

entr

ies

and

pass

rate

s,by

subj

ect,

Mal

dive

s,19

91–9

9a

1991

1993

1995

1997

1999

No.

sat

%pa

ssN

o.sa

t%

pass

No.

sat

%pa

ssN

o.sa

t%

pass

No.

sat

%pa

ss

Com

putin

gS

tudi

esb55

7385

7910

763

Art

&D

esig

nb60

8210

097

114

5321

378

Eng

lish

439

3183

532

1244

3214

8716

1874

23M

aths

416

3779

147

1183

4014

2129

1922

42B

iolo

gy30

853

496

5462

248

595

5168

248

Che

mis

try

290

7842

173

555

6654

056

613

67P

hysi

cs33

558

440

6557

153

573

4361

858

His

tory

3650

112

5316

555

148

5312

152

Geo

grap

hy34

2998

3313

519

107

2284

44E

cono

mic

s11

147

293

3450

934

643

4011

2437

Inte

grat

edS

ci.

191

6428

871

316

72F

ishe

ries

Sci

ence

7397

156

9134

583

509

6311

7072

Hum

anB

iolo

gy28

8616

680

316

7521

668

150

73E

nglis

hLi

tera

ture

1650

3510

092

5261

3183

71P

ure

Mat

hem

atic

s67

100

138

4752

4453

32A

ccou

ntin

g38

3418

846

473

6273

058

1296

60C

omm

erce

2711

114

3231

526

531

3296

837

Rel

igio

usS

tudi

es13

77F

renc

h2

501

0G

raph

ical

Com

m.

250

Tot

al24

0645

0171

4778

1211

078

aS

ourc

e:D

epar

tmen

tof

Pub

licE

xam

inat

ions

,M

ale.

bT

heJu

neca

ndid

ates

have

been

grou

ped

with

the

cand

idat

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ing

Janu

ary,

sinc

eth

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1999

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June

1998

.


Table 3A Level subject-entries, by subject, Maldives, 1991–98a

1991 1993 1995 1997 1998

Accounting 1 4 33 35 43Art 1 5 8 1Biology 19 37 106 76 83Business Studies 29 34 31Chemistry 41 60 116 106 104Economics 9 11 35 31 46General Studies 1Geography 4 6 6Government and Politics 16 23 8Graphical Communication 1 3History 7 12 14 5 6Law 1 9 14Literature 1 2 3 9Mathematics 24 63 142 106 133Pure Mathematics 3 1 30 3 1Mathematics and Statistics 13 1 2 7Further Mathematics 8 17 22Applied Mathematics 6Mechanics 1Physics 42 70 125 88 106Religious Studies 4Sociology 4 5

Total 161 276 683 670 605

a Source: Department of Public Examinations, Male.

Anderson and Windham, 1982), but in Maldives itwas arguable that the international links in examin-ations were both necessary and desirable. By themid-1980s the Maldivian authorities felt concernabout certain elements which were neglected bythe ULEAC system; but their solution was to sup-plement the ULEAC arrangements with the Dhi-vehi and Islamic Studies national examinationsrather than to replace the ULEAC system.

5.2. Misgivings about existing arrangements

By the late 1990s, misgivings about at leastsome features of the ULEAC links had grown. Thiswas partly because the Maldivian education systemhad itself grown. The increased number of candi-dates raised the volume of expenditures; and con-cern was expressed more loudly about the natureof the curriculum imposed by the examination sys-tem. Particular attention focused on the O Levelarrangements.

Table 2 shows that the number of candidateentries in the ULEAC/Edexcel O Level examin-ations increased from 2,406 in 1991 to 11,078 in1999, i.e. it more than quadrupled over an eight-year period. At A Level, candidate entries hadexpanded by almost the same proportion, from 161in 1991 to 605 in 1998 (Table 3). Since Edexceldemanded payment in pounds sterling, this growthcreated a substantial drain on foreign exchange. In1999, Edexcel charged £22 per O Level subjectand £45 per A Level subject, creating a total billin that year of £271,000 (US$431,000). Additionalcosts were imposed on the Department of PublicExaminations, which administered the examin-ations locally, as well as on schools and families.One cost to the DPE was for air-freighting answerscripts to London. For security reasons this wasdone through a courier company, and in January1999 cost US$7,000 for the O Level scripts. TheMinistry of Education required Grade 10 studentseach to take at least six O Levels and two SSC


subjects. The DPE charged fees of Rf50 (US$4.30)for administering each O Level subject, plus Rf75(US$6.40) as a standard charge for SSC and afurther Rf75 for each SSC subject. Thus a candi-date taking the minimum incurred costs of Rf2,900(US$255). This was equivalent to 20 per cent ofthe annual per capita income, and was a parti-cularly heavy burden for families in the atolls out-side the capital.

Other misgivings arose about the elitist natureof the O Level qualification. Table 2 shows thatlarge numbers of pupils failed, and some gainedno qualifications at all. Particularly dramatic werethe failure rates in English: 77 per cent of candi-dates failed in 1999, and 86 per cent failed in 1998.Failure rates had also been high in the early 1990s;but this was considered more acceptable when thesecondary education system was small anddesigned to be elitist. With the expansion of thesystem to embrace many pupils with less academicbackgrounds and aspirations, many educators feltthe need for a qualification more similar to theGCSE.

The third source of misgiving arose from thenature of the curriculum. The fact that the examin-ation required importation of books and othermaterials from the UK was generally accepted asnecessary, even though it created a further drainon foreign exchange. However, because the OLevel had been phased out in the UK, authors andpublishers were unwilling to invest time and capi-tal in updating the books. This was especially prob-lematic in such subjects as commerce, economicsand computing studies.

The curriculum was also shaped by the combi-nation of subjects which could be taken at O Level,which was rather limited. As noted above, world-wide Edexcel only offered 32 Mode 1 O Level sub-jects compared with 43 A Level subjects, andabout half of the subjects were not suitable forMaldivian students. No General Science wasoffered of a type which could be studied by non-science stream students; and no general subject insocial science could be offered to non-arts streamstudents. This made the curriculum undesirablynarrow.

Perhaps even more striking were the biases aris-ing from the nature of the questions. One reason

why failure rates in English were so high was thatEdexcel insisted first that fluency should match thestandard expected of native speakers, and secondthat the types of native speakers which Edexcel hadin mind seemed to be ones inhabiting the UK. Theresult was that questions contained cultural biaswhich imposed unnecessary hurdles on Maldiviancandidates. Four examples may illustrate this point:

O One paper included a passage on transport. Theforms of transport with which Maldivian stu-dents are most familiar are boats and perhapsaeroplanes. Unless they have been abroad, Mal-divians will never have seen trains, horses,camels or long-distance buses. While studentsmay have seen other forms of transport on tele-vision and in books, they were nevertheless dis-advantaged in comparison with counterparts inother countries.

O Another paper had a passage on national parkswhich, at least in Europe and Africa, are usuallylarge in area and contain wildlife. Some Maldiv-ian students associated the topic with SultanPark, a small and carefully tended garden inMale which has a very different scope and func-tion.

O In 1998, a comprehension passage focused onthe shipTitanic, which hit an iceberg in 1912and sank. To be fair, even in the UK few stu-dents have ever seen an iceberg (though theyare more likely to have experienced ice andsnow). But the advantage that UK students hadwas that a major feature film on the topic hadrecently gripped the country. Many UK studentswould have seen and discussed the film. FewerMaldivian students would have seen the film,even in Male, especially in 1998.

O One comprehension passage referred to aDepartment Store which has many branches inthe UK and is called Debenhams. The passagewas about the different items which were soldin sections on different floors. Maldives has noDepartment Stores of this type, even in Male;and many students were put off by the unfam-iliar word ‘Debenhams’.

These four examples all came from English papers.An alternative example of the same type of prob-


lem may be taken from the commerce syllabus, forwhich the examination assumed knowledge ofcheques, credit cards, bar-codes, etc. which are rarein Maldivian daily life. A few stores in Male douse bar-codes; but they would be frequented onlyby the more prosperous students, and the use ofbar-codes would be quite alien to youths on theremote atolls. In general, even Male retains aneconomy based on cash and small shops, very dis-tant from the chain stores and high-technologycommerce on which some examination questionswere based.

At A Level the syllabuses and examinationswere hardly more relevant to Maldivian daily life.However, it seemed that educators and the publicin general were more tolerant. This was perhapsbecause total numbers remained small, and theMaldivian system therefore remained elitist. Also,because A Levels were still in active use in theUK, publishers were more willing to update text-books. A further point was that A Levels were per-ceived as more important than O Levels for inter-national mobility. This was chiefly becausedomestic opportunities had increased for O Levelgraduates, and only about 15 per cent of studentsstill sought foreign studies after Grade 10. More-over, some applicants found that O Level was actu-ally less widely recognised than had been assumed,even in the UK. Thus, at least one family in 1998found, when applying to a UK institution, that theinstitution looked askance at the O Level certificatebecause the O Level had ceased to exist within theUK and the institution considered it an archaicqualification.

Finally, the examinations had a backwash in themedium of instruction. A powerful pedagogicalcase can be made in favour of instruction in themother tongue, which is obstructed when theexaminations use English as the medium. On thismatter, however, the government has chosen apragmatic path. A 1995 Education Sector Review(Maldives, 1995: 88) noted that tensions on themedium of instruction cannot in fact be resolvedon pedagogical grounds:

since the parents on Male would not support achange from English to Dhivehi medium pri-mary schools and the island schools are chang-

ing as quickly as they can secure the teachersnecessary to provide instruction in Englishmedium. The real issue here is how best to assistthese schools in helping students make up theirdeficits in English.

This view suggests that English-medium educationis likely to remain (albeit with tensions), and thatthis aspect of the backwash in the language of OLevel examinations should not be over-empha-sised. Nevertheless, as the Education SectorReview also observed (p. 124), “the structure ofsecondary education purchases external credibilityat a substantial price in terms of both finances andcurricular relevance”.

5.3. Alternatives and constraints

When considering ways to tackle this dissatis-faction with the Edexcel link, particularly at OLevel, the Maldivian authorities faced three mainalternatives. The first was to negotiate with Edex-cel to secure better value for money and improvedrelevance. The second was to change the externallink from Edexcel to another board. The third wasto replace the metropolitan examinations withnational ones. However, none of these arrange-ments was necessarily straightforward and with-out constraints.

Beginning with the first option, one importantfactor in any professional–client relationship is thescale of the market share. Two factors had greatlyincreased Maldives’ share in Edexcel’s externaloperations, namely the shift of some other coun-tries away from London examinations and thegrowth of the Maldivian education system. Theresult of the combination of these factors was thatin the January 1998 sittings, Maldives represented32.4 per cent of the Edexcel O Level subject-entries worldwide (Edexcel Foundation, 1998: 17).Maldivian entries were a much smaller proportionin the June sitting; but even when the January andJune sittings were combined, Maldives formed11.0 per cent of the total. Edexcel has sometimesbeen perceived as more concerned with the UKthan with overseas clients, and some Maldivianeducators had felt frustrated by the organisation’sunwillingness to address some of their professional


queries. However, Edexcel was showing signs inthe late 1990s of being aware of its unfavourableimage, and seemed willing to seek improvement.The point for the present paper is that, particularlywhen substantial financial transactions are con-cerned, client states do not necessarily have to seethemselves as helpless recipients in internationaltransactions of this kind.

The second option was to change the externalprovider. The most obvious alternative wasUCLES, which has a larger operation than Edexceland which has demonstrated much more willing-ness to work in partnership with small states andother clients to meet their perceived needs (Sadler,1998). The Namibian example was given above.Other examples in which UCLES has demon-strated flexibility to tailor examinations are foundin Singapore and Brunei Darussalam. For Mal-dives, UCLES would not necessarily be cheaperthan Edexcel; but UCLES appeared to offer greaterflexibility and the possibility of tailoring examin-ations to fit Maldivian circumstances.

The third option, which could be seen in combi-nation with one or both of the previous ones aswell as a separate alternative, was to localise theexaminations. The principal challenge here was intechnical competence and administrative capacity.Comparative survey shows some states which arequite large but have chosen not to localise examin-ations, such as Singapore (population 2.9 million),and others which are even smaller than Maldivesbut which have moved to localisation, such asTonga (population 95,000). The Singaporean caseis instructive since the country has considerabletechnical expertise as well as economies of scale,yet has chosen to retain the links with UCLES forreasons of perceived standards and internationalportability (Chong, 1998). Tonga took a morenationalistic approach, but has been assisted by aregional body of a type not available to Maldives,namely the South Pacific Board for EducationalAssessment (Rees and Singh, 1998). Tonga alsomakes use of the New Zealand QualificationsAuthority for some components of its system(Murtagh and Steer, 1998; Tonga, Ministry of Edu-cation Examinations Unit, 1998).

To some observers, the option to localise exam-inations at the Grade 10 level was particularly

attractive because the element of international rec-ognition had declined in significance. Local pro-vision of A Level (Grades 11 and 12) educationhad increased in quantity, and the proportion ofGrade 10 leavers who went abroad either foremployment or further studies was very small.Indeed, such were the failure rates that rather fewGrade 10 graduates could have gone abroad forfurther studies or employment had they wanted to.

An initial question concerning the option tolocalise examinations was whether the country hadenough national expertise to do so. In this domain,constraints were undeniable, even if they were lessacute than they had been in the past. One way toenlarge the pool of expertise, which is also fol-lowed in other small states (see, e.g. Sanerivi,1998: 94), would be to use teachers and other per-sonnel in the education system and wider society.The Department of Public Examinations in theMaldivian Ministry of Education already does thisin connection with the national SSC and HSCexaminations, and the strategy could be extended.It does encounter administrative complexities fromcoordination of part-time personnel and the needfor confidentiality, but ways have been found tohandle these complexities.

Nevertheless, it is unlikely that in the shortrun—and perhaps even in the longer run—enoughlocal expertise will be found to localise all dimen-sions of the examinations. This being the case, thequestion would be how Maldives could accessexpertise as required. One solution would be forthe Maldivian authorities to make their ownappointments, using their contacts and perhapsassisted by one or more of the professional associ-ations of examiners. One long-established body isthe International Association for EducationalAssessment, which has a substantial number ofsmall-state members (International Association forEducational Assessment, 1996). A younger bodyis the Association of Commonwealth Examinationand Accreditation Bodies, which was set up fol-lowing the 1998 Commonwealth Secretariat meet-ing in Wellington, New Zealand, and which hasa specific mandate to provide mutual support tosmall states.

Another way for the Maldivian authorities togain access to external expertise would be through


a contractual arrangement with a body such asUCLES or Edexcel. UCLES already has long anddemonstrated capacity in the localisation of exam-inations and the operation of partnerships with thisgoal in view. The government of Bahamas, forexample, has launched a Bahamas General Cer-tificate of Secondary Education in conjunction withUCLES (Sumner and Archer, 1998). UCLES pro-vides important technical expertise and moderatesthe standards, and the certificate bears the crests ofboth the Bahamian government and the Universityof Cambridge. This arrangement has assured thepublic that localisation of the certificate has notbeen at the expense of declining standards and lossof international recognition, and in many respectsachieves the best of both worlds. UCLES hasembarked on similar arrangements in Botswana,Lesotho and Swaziland (Davids, 1998; Ralise,1998; Kumalo, 1998). Although Edexcel has notbeen so strongly involved in such ventures, pre-cedents also exist with that organisation. Forexample, when the Secondary Education Certifi-cate was localised in Malta, one problem con-cerned local perceptions of the reliability of theexamination (Debono et al., 1999; Sultana, 1999).To address this issue, in 1998 the Maltese auth-orities negotiated an arrangement through whichEdexcel would become part of the paper setters’and markers’ panels. As noted by Ventura (1998)(p. 14), the process was expected not only to serveas a quality audit, “but also as an opportunity forsubject-specific training in examination skills andas a way of instilling confidence in the examinationand enhancing international recognition”.

6. Conclusions

This article has taken the domain of secondaryschool examinations to explore tensions and issuesassociated with a dialectic between the inter-national and the national in one particular setting.While of course the Maldivian case has its owndistinctive features, the key features of the dialecticmay be found in many small states (Bray, 1998a).

From the perspective of dependency and interde-pendency, several features deserve particularemphasis. The first is that within Maldives, ambiv-

alence about the links with London in the examin-ation sector only came to a head in the late 1990s,i.e. over 30 years after independence. This waschiefly because the Maldivian secondary educationsystem prior to that time was very small and elitist.As the system expanded, it began to cater for largernumbers of people who had less need for inter-national recognition of their qualifications and whowere perceived to be disadvantaged by a curricu-lum which was in many respects alien to theirneeds and social contexts. Another effect of edu-cational expansion was that Maldives had a greaterpool of domestic expertise capable of running atleast parts of a local examination system. Also, asthe system expanded the costs in foreign exchangegreatly increased. During the late 1990s the maindebate focused on the O Levels, but it seems likelythat in coming years a similar debate will focus onthe A Levels.

The issues outlined in this paper are felt parti-cularly acutely in small states. In part this isbecause states with small populations are, by defi-nition, limited in their pool of domestic expertisefor professional activities of all types. Also, smallstates are generally characterised by open econom-ies and reliance on larger states for aspects ofhigher-level training. Some small states do havenational universities; but those institutions areinevitably limited in the range of specialismswhich they can cover, and a need will always existfor some external training.

At the same time, the paper has shown that smallstates do not have to resign themselves to beingpassive and disadvantaged actors in the inter-national arena. In the domain of examinations, theMaldivian authorities have the power to negotiatewith external bodies to secure packages which willbest suit their needs. Even small states have bar-gaining power in such relationships, chieflybecause relationships are usually ones of interde-pendence rather than complete dependency.

The paper has also added to the literature whichshows the variations in the circumstances facingparticular small states. Because Maldives has noobvious regional partners, it cannot easily join aregional body comparable to the CXC, the SPBEAor WAEC. Also, the Maldivian situation is moreillustrative of patterns among the smallest of the


small than of larger states which can draw onnational universities and greater pools of expertise.As such, this case study fits into a spectrum of situ-ations and circumstances.

Finally, the article shows the value of compara-tive analysis. The Maldivian authorities can learnmuch about issues and options by examining mod-els and solutions in other countries; and perhapsreaders in other countries can improve their ownunderstanding of tensions and strategies by con-sidering the case of Maldives. The article may alsoplay a role in broader conceptualisation about thenature of the field of comparative education. Thepaper commenced by noting the 1999 textbookedited by Arnove and Torres which is subtitled‘The dialectic of the global and the local’. Ar-nove’s introduction within that book states(Arnove, 1999: 1) that:

Understanding this interactive process [betweenthe global and the local], the tensions and con-tradictions, is central to recasting or ‘reframing’the field of comparative and international edu-cation.

Arnove argued that such recasting or reframingwas needed to take account of changing forces onthe world stage and corresponding changes ineconomic, social and educational policies. The dis-cussion presented here can assist in the broaderunderstanding which Arnove had in mind.

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