When talking about grades and grading students often get nervous, scared, anxious and so forth. What grades they get can be the difference if they will get to study what they want at uni. The higher the grades are, the higher are the chances the students will be accepted to the univeristy they want to go to. But then, are grades fair? Do all students all over Sweden get graded in the same way? Do they have the same opportunity to get good grades or the grades they deserve? The simple answer is no, grades are not fair and all students don't get the grade they deserve or they get higher grades than they deserve. This is a huge problem and the fault is not the teachers but the system at many times.

We do have a national test and there has been discussions about having them corrected and graded externally but as many has pointed out this will not help if the national test doesn't decide what grade the students will recieve at the end of the term. If the national test will be graded externally then the national test should be a bigger part of the final grade than what it is today. But is this fair? One test you write, should that decide what grade you get? What if the student fails the national test but has shown during the semester than he or she actually knows what he or she has to know? Should we then fail that student?

Grading isn't simple and it shouldn't be either, but I believe that teachers and preservice teachers need more education in how to grade and what to think about when grading. Grading should be a part of the teacher programme but it isn't, the few times we talk about grading is during the teaching practicum and that isn't enough, the univeristy shouldn't put teaching about grading on the mentor a student have during the practicum, grading should be discussed at the university to.