The Herald
Herald Reporter
11 June 2009
GOVERNMENT has maintained that Ordinary Level failures who were already attending Advanced Level classes before their results were released will be ejected.
In an interview on Tuesday, Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister David Coltart said the Government had not changed its position and schools should adhere to its earlier directive.
“We have not changed our position. Unfortunately those who have completely failed their ‘O’ level examinations but were already attending (A Level) classes will have to stop,” he said.
“Since when did we start enrolling ‘O’ level failures to ‘A’ level or ‘A’ level failures to university?” Most schools visited by The Herald on Monday, however, said the fate of such pupils would lie with their parents, with some indicating the children could continue A Level classes while supplementing O Level subjects.
Last month Minister Coltart said those who had completely failed would have to stop lessons, which has inconvenienced some pupils who had already paid fees and bought school uniforms.
Minister Coltart said the fate of such pupils would have been the same if results had been released in January.
Minister Coltart last week said the pupils should not be refunded the fees they had paid for the second term, as this would disrupt the normal running of schools.
In April, the Ministry of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture allowed schools to enroll students for A-Level based on their mid-year mock examinations performance, saying their plight was a matter of concern to the ministry after Zimsec failed to give a time frame for the release of the results. O-Level results were released last Friday and students started collecting them on Monday. However, most school heads were optimistic that only a few students would be affected by the results as they had enrolled them on merit.