A Second Chance (and a 3rd and a 4th, etc.)

Well, I survived my first school year here in Ecuador. Okay, so I sort of cheated by coming in halfway through the year but still. Actually, I had just gotten the hang of it around the time it was ending. So, hopefully that will make me more prepared and ready for next year. Although there are several educational issues here that irk me, the main one is the suplitorio.

Ecuadorian education law states that students receive a chance to pass their classes even if they don't technically pass. If they fail for the year (passing grade is 68 here), they can take a test called the suplitorio. That grade is then averaged in somehow with their yearly average. For example, if a student has a 67 for the year, they can make a 73 on the suplitorio and still pass and get credit for the class. I think this can be a good thing in some ways. They do not take the suplitorio until the beginning of the next school year, so many of them really do spend their summer studying and getting tutored. Therefore, they learn the material better before moving on. It also gives students a second chance who may have had some kind of issues during the school year that kept them from doing their best.

However, many private schools take that a little too far. For example, my school actually offers a complementario for the 3rd bimester (we have 4 bimesters instead of 2 semesters) which actually REPLACES their entire 3rd bimester average. So, the lazy student who doesn't do any essays or projects or homework the entire time can make a 75 on the test and have a 75 average instead of a 40. Also, most private schools offer multiple suplitorios. So, if a student fails the suplitorio (which often happens because they just don't know the material which is why they failed the first time), the teacher is required to give another suplitorio and another suplitorio, etc. And, rumor has it that eventually they just tell you to pass the student. Errr...I'll see how that works out when I return to school in March.

I think that part of the problem is that they don't necessarily have a way to retake a course at my school. If you fail 10th grade Language Arts, they don't have a system that allows you to retake that class while taking all other 11th grade classes like we do in the States. Actually, I could never get anyone at the school to give me a solid answer about what happens if a student really does just fail. The only answer I ever got was that the student is just given a pass (given credit anyway) but told they have to go to another school. Hmmm...that doesn't sound too good either. But, since the school doesn't want to lose money on students leaving, I think they always just tell the teachers to pass them.

...Which may be why I have students in 10th grade, who have been at this bilingual school since pre-k, who still can't speak English to me. Social promotion is huge here, but with no other system in place for repeating classes, I'm not surprised. I have a feeling I'm going to get into some disagreements when I return in March. I just can't in good conscience pass a student to the next level when I know they will just fail again. But, we'll see...