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During university, we’ve heard the term “partial credits” often enough. Lecturers and tutors will announce to the class to try their best to solve a problem in a term paper or project. They’ll take it a step further by saying that partial credit will be given for incomplete answers. Personally, I think that this is a bad practice.

Granted that the education system needs to be lenient towards students in order to encourage and boaster their confidence. However, giving partial credit for answers that are half wrong is not the way to go about it. The point of education is to prepare students for the real world. Not feed them with a load of hogwash about credit being given for half efforts. IMHO, no credit should be given at all. This may sound a little harsh, but the reason being that the practice instills in them a false belief that the real world is that forgiving. They walk out into the job market with a naive perception of what is required of them. And then they hit the truth, running headlong into a brick wall.

Most people recover from the situation, adapting to it, and overcoming this sudden realisation. But not everyone is so lucky. Many fall by the wayside, unable to accept this inexplicable truth, that they can’t submit partial answers and be rewarded for it. Not all industries are so forgiving. Businesses require solutions. Not ifs and maybes. They will forgive trials and errors so long as an end is in sight. They will not forgive incompetency. By practicing partial credits in education, what we wind up doing is actually softening up the students and revealing their underbellies to be gutted.

Being lenient is one thing, leading people astray is a whole different story. There are two forms of problems that a person can be faced with. The first is something that is familiar. Faced with the familiar means that a person should be efficient about it and get it right without resorting to trial and error. A second form is something that is totally new. For such problems, some form of research, experimentation, and guesswork may be required. That being the case and if leniency is a must, then allow them to rethink, redo, and resubmit their solutions. This at least trains them to think and actually put effort into solving a problem instead of hoping for rewards where none are due.

However, I do understand that education is constrained by time and resources. If we had an infinite amount of time, then yeah, we may be able to practice this ideal of redoing it until it is right. But having said that, perhaps a compromise between the two extremes is the better solution. One where credit is granted for credible solutions. Something that is conceptually sound and might work with a little more effort. A prototype solution of sorts.

Feel free to argue or agree with me. Just keep it civil.