Islanders’ educational choice: Determinants of the students’ performance in the Cambridge International Certificate Exams in the Republic of Maldives Shoko Yamada *, Kiyoshi Fujikawa, Krishna P. Pangeni Graduate School of International Development, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya 464-8601, Aichi, Japan 1. Introduction The demands for internationally acknowledged examinations for educational qualification are increasing. Among the bodies which provide such testing services are University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES), EDEXCEL, and International Baccalaureate. The reliance on these international tests is found not only at the school level, but also at the national level. Not a few national governments certify their students’ diplomas with these international tests in major subjects like mathematics and English, instead of developing their own exams and curricula. Maldives is one such country, which made University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) exams compulsory to qualify for the secondary school diploma. For small states like Maldives, developing and administering certificate exams demands a high level of expertise, which is difficult to maintain internally with a limited budget, while the school age population is also relatively small and scattered. In addition, the domestic labour market is small and people tend to emigrate for work or education, for which the internationally acknowledged educational certification is more desirable than a national one. Therefore, the push to adopt international tests comes from both the governmental and individual perspectives. However, one should not overlook the fundamental difference between adopting international tests to certify the diploma of national education system and the individual decision to sit for the international tests for wider marketability of their educational credentials. It is often said that the examination system is to be systemically linked with curriculum, teacher education, and teaching and learning materials so that educational provision will be efficient and students will learn effectively (Eckstein and Noah, 1993, 19–22; Abraham, 2003, 79; Sultana, 1999, 8). Therefore, the question should be asked whether the certification by interna- tional tests is embedded in the education system and contributes to the goals of the national curriculum as a systemic component. This issue also leads to a second question: Does the national adoption of international certification equally affect students who take the exams? If the national curriculum is tied well to the content of international tests and teachers follow such curricular International Journal of Educational Development 41 (2015) 60–69 A R T I C L E I N F O Keywords: International examinations Effective school Small states Educational attainment Comparative education A B S T R A C T This paper is based on the analysis of a questionnaire survey with teachers and 10th-grade students who took the Cambridge Ordinary Level (O-level) and national secondary school certificate (SSC) examinations in mathematics, English, and Divehi language in the Republic of Maldives. A total of 517 students and 60 subject teachers from eight schools took part in this survey, and the responses from students were matched up with their examination scores in three subjects. The primary objective of this paper is to identify the factors influencing the students’ performance in three subjects. Based on that, it considers the implications of employing an international examination system to certify students of the national education system in Maldives. Because of the limited capacity in running a mass education system, this small island state uses an externally-developed examination system for many years. However, the study reveals that the students’ performance in O-level exams largely depends on the households’ socio-economic conditions and learning environment at home. Factors related to teachers and teaching–learning processes in school do not have much impact. While the government is reforming the curriculum to be more learner-centered and relevant to the national context, the externally- developed exams conflict with such drive for nationalization and widen the gap of educational outcomes among students with and without extra support from the family. ß 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +81 90 7541 8024. E-mail address: syamada@gsid.nagoya-u.ac.jp (S. Yamada). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Educational Development jo ur n al ho m ep ag e: ww w.els evier .c om /lo cat e/ijed u d ev http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2015.01.001 0738-0593/ß 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.