Sunday News
By Charles Dube
21 March 2009
WHEN things have not been going well for sometime, it calls for hard work for the system to normalise.
There are many problems bedevilling the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture. Already the credibility of O- and A-level examination results for 2008 is being questioned in educational circles.
According to a representative from a teachers’ union, the examinations are disputed. They were written under very hard conditions. Many children did not get formal learning last year. Some students never had teachers before them hence whatever they produced will not be reflective of the actual performance they would have achieved if they had been guided by teachers.
I believe it is of paramount importance to restore the credibility of the examinations if students who sat their public examinations last year are not to be stigmatised. People will question the authenticity of their results and will always ridicule them for having not passed well even if they would have passed. Registration for this year’s examinations should be done early to instil confidence to both teachers and students. Examinations give direction. Teachers and students are motivated by the desire to perform well in examinations. They are a target which must be accomplished well. Learning with no proper set goals is discouraging.
Even though it looks like the problems that are there will continue to haunt the system for sometime, there is light at the end of the tunnel. The Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture, David Coltart, has already ordered schools to enrol Lower Sixth students in cognisance of the fact that they have already lost out on valuable time to learn. They are to register students basing them on the reports from the previous year. A step in the right direction as reports can easily show the potential in the students.
The fees charged by different schools are still causing concern and there are squabbles reported here and there with parents crying foul over the high figures demanded by schools. There is welcome news associated with those who cannot afford to pay the fees. There is a new scheme where those who cannot afford to fill in forms to ask for exemption or to pay less. But such a scheme needs to be tight to combat any corrupt acts which might be associated with it. Such noble ideas have been abused before where well-up individuals manipulated the system and had their children learning for free at the expense of deserving cases like the poor and orphans.
There is also a suggestion to allow people who cannot afford to pay fees one time to stagger their payments. This is a very sympathetic type of arrangement but again it cannot be ruled out that it can be abused. People will take advantage and continuously delay payment thereby affecting service delivery at the schools. Schools need money to run effectively. People have shown untrustworthiness on examination fees — students were allowed to register for examinations even before payment, the school being the guarantor. Some cunning people do not pay their dues until at the release of the results but the schools would have been inconvenienced as they need money everyday for them to run efficiently.
World Book Day, 23 April is coming soon. Does it make sense to you? It should make sense to readers as programmes of the day are meant to encourage a reading culture among students and the nation at large Through reading, students get a cross-section of ideas, learn about different cultures thereby understanding mankind. Students become objective in their perceptions of life and respect other people’s opinions from an informed perspective.