“Complete waste of time”: mandatory A-Levels push faces rural reality check
Only 59 out of 212 schools offer A-Levels.
Artwork: Dosain
03 Jul, 4:43 PM
Ibrahim Inan’s home island school wasn’t among the 59 out of the 212 schools in the Maldives that offer A-Levels. But two years after moving to the Laamu Gan school, he considered it “a complete waste of time” – a common sentiment at the heart of a national debate ignited by the education minister’s proposal to make the exams mandatory.
The government’s plan to “end the culture of leaving students behind,” Education Minister Dr Ismail Shafeeu said last week, was “making A-Level the standard school leaving stage by the end of this five year term.”
The apparent policy announcement came during an awards ceremony for 1,800 high achievers who sat the O-Level and A-Level exams in 2023 and 2024. At the last of five sessions over two days, President Dr Mohamed Muizzu awarded presidential scholarships to 11 students who secured national top 10 spots in the higher secondary examinations. High achievers’ scholarships were also handed out to 87 students.
The Maldives Independent was awaiting a response from the education ministry to confirm the policy decision.
Outcry
Amid the angry social media backlash, opposition lawmaker Mohamed Ibrahim took up concerns shared by an X user and posed them to the minister through parliament.
There was a lack of awareness about the purpose of A-Levels, largely due to the misconception that they are merely an extension of O-Levels, the post argued, highlighting key structural problems including:
Absence of formal career guidance that forces students to make uninformed subject and degree choices.
Inclusion of Dhivehi and Islam as compulsory A-Level subjects, creating an additional burden and placing Maldivian students at a global disadvantage since these subjects aren't considered for university entrance abroad.
October-November exam timing out of sync with international university admissions, especially the popular September intake.
Unlike their peers in the UK who begin A-Levels with university ambitions in mind, Maldivian students often enter blindly, driven by social pressures such as the pursuit of academic awards rather than long-term goals. This leads to burnout and leaves students directionless upon graduation.
Rural experience
Students should have the choice of continuing studies or entering the job market, said a 26-year-old woman from Noonu Kudafari who moved to Malé to do A-Levels.
“Most students are fed up with school by the time they reach grade 10," she told the Maldives Independent. As the Kudafari school only teaches up to grade 10, many students move to Holhudhoo or Kendhikukhudhoo in the same atoll. A lot of others move to Malé, she said.
For Ibrahim Inan from Laamu Maabaidhoo, who moved to Gan to study A-Levels at the Hamad Bin Al Thaanee school, the biggest problem was the lack of qualified teachers.
“My result was pretty good, but overall it was a waste because we had to beg the school to take classes and in the end it was O-level teachers teaching A-levels,” the 25-year-old recalled, stressing the lack of capacity in most schools outside the capital and suggesting that a one-year foundation course could be a better and shorter pathway to a degree.
A-Levels could also be "irrelevant" depending on the student's chosen field, said Inan, who now works as a ranger with an environmental organisation after completing a business management degree and a diploma in environmental management. He is currently enrolled in a special ranger course at the Maldives National University to oversee protected areas in Laamu atoll.
Inan said he could have been done with a masters degree by now "if I focused on university rather than spending two years at a school which didn’t have the facilities or teachers to teach A-levels."
Abdulla Adam, the Kulhudhuffushi City Council's secretary general, recalled the similar state of the island's Jalaluddin school in 2008, one of the more reputable schools in the atolls.
“I taught all subjects to my classmates, and they taught me maths in return,” he said with a laugh. “They still tag me in memes and send me Teachers’ Day greetings.”
Rasheeda Abdul Raheem, who completed A-Levels from the same school five years later, saw little change. “Both our biology and chemistry teachers moved up with us to A-Level. But for physics, I remember we had about three or four different teachers in one year,” she said.
Low-income students in particular were under immense pressure to win a spot in the national top ten to secure scholarships: “All the poor kids aim for it. I did too. And I blamed myself when I didn’t make it. I still think about it.”
Capital reality
When she moved to Malé, Rasheeda shared a room with another migrant who was also studying A-Level after finishing top in her island school. But her family couldn't afford to pay for private tutors. In Malé, most students rely on two or three private sessions a week amid the intense competition for the A-Level high achievers' awards.
"She spent so much just to keep up. She wanted to become a doctor. I remember she cried a lot, tried so hard to cram. Now she’s a teacher – it’s not bad," Rasheed said.
She was critical of making A-Levels mandatory. “It’ll raise the bar too high for something that’s not even necessary for a career. No real skills – just programming students to inhale information. A-Levels don’t teach a single skill the real world needs. It’s not even a foundation for anything. Where’s computer science for IT careers? Where’s tourism? Political science?”
Students entering degrees with a diploma are often better prepared, she suggested. “I joined an IT degree with A-Levels and missed out on diploma modules that were actually needed.”
A secondary school teacher at a private school in Malé called mandatory A-Levels "a terrible idea for many reasons." Forcing all students down the A-Level path would be unfair to students who are not academically inclined but who could excel with a diploma, vocational training or work experience, she said.
“There are so few institutions that can even offer A-Levels right now. And K–10 schools are already overburdened. This will be a logistical nightmare and place even more pressure on teachers – especially after years of constant changes to the academic calendar. Grade 10 teachers haven’t had year-end holidays for two years," she explained.
Two more years would exacerbate the effects of a system that leans heavily on rote learning and leaves students without basic literacy or critical thinking skills, she argued.
“Making them do another two years of that will just worsen things – and fuel more unhealthy competition for the inevitable top ten rankings," she said.
Malé schools are not that much better than atoll schools to warrant upending young people's lives. “Government schools will always be over capacity. And Villa has about 900 students right now, Billabong can barely function, and Ahmadhiyya is terrible,” she said.
She pointed to the growing dependence on private tutors: “Government school students are paying exorbitant fees for tuition they don’t even need – just to get an edge. It’s only going to get worse for A-Levels, because they have so much more at stake: their university education.”
Educational divide
The concerns about systemic inadequacy reflect a broader educational divide that has persisted for years.
Maldivians achieve 12 years of schooling, a higher average than South Asia, but the figure drops to eight years when adjusted for quality of education, a World Bank study to assess human capital showed last year.
But a student in Malé is likely to complete three more years of schooling than a student elsewhere in the country, a 2014 UN human development report found, identifying education measured by years of schooling as the highest contributing factor to inequality.
When schools reopened for the new academic year last April, more than 2,000 out of 5,000 new students who enrolled in the first grade joined schools in the Greater Malé Region, reflecting the stark urban-rural divide after decades of uninterrupted migratory flow to the capital.
Only three out of 11 top achievers at this year's award ceremony represented atoll schools. The majority went to the Centre for Higher Secondary Education (CHSE) in Malé, the flagship A-level institution with campuses in Malé and Hulhumalé.
In his remarks during the award ceremony, the education minister highlighted a concerning trend: only 36 percent of students who reach the national O-Level top 10 make it to the A-Level top 10.
A pilot program to address low A-Level enrolment rates in 23 schools outside Malé succeeded in raising the rate by 76 percent in public schools, and 38 percent overall across both public and private schools, Shafeeu said, without offering details. The A-Level pass rate in 2024 increased by 106 students, he added.
But more than half of students fail to pass five O-Level subjects, a rate that has remained below 50 percent since 2014, Shafeeu noted.
Female students, however, outperform their male peers by 10 percent, he revealed, announcing a study to be carried out this year to identify the reasons for the gender gap.
A wider gender gap exists among teachers, the minister said, urging more graduates to join the profession. To alleviate the severe shortage, the government needs to train over 600 special education as well as Islam and Dhivehi teachers, he said.
The MVR 4.4 billion (US$ 285 million) education budget for 2025 included allocations for air-conditioning classrooms and continuing a new teacher development programme launched last year, Shafeeu said.
Teacher trainees are now paid a stipend. Measures taken last year to promote mental wellness of teachers include a mental health line and Friday dedicated as an off day without extracurricular activities, the minister said.
Mandatory A-Levels “would be a very good step forward for the progress of our country,” Shafeeu said.
“We can achieve this with God’s grace with your advice and instruction,” he added with a nod to President Muizzu.
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