The Herald
23 October 2009
Herald Reporter
PREPARATIONS for this year’s Grade Seven examinations are well on course while thousands of Ordinary and Advanced Level students remain unregistered despite the Government’s offer to have them register on a loan basis.
It has since been established that communication on how the loans could be accessed did not reach the intended beneficiaries.
Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister David Coltart yesterday said his ministry had done enough to disseminate the necessary information to all the examination centres.
“We sent everything to the centres and even published it in the media so there is no reason why people must say communication lacked,” he said.
Minister Coltart, however, said there was no doubt that the registration levels were still low, but would issue a full statement after Zimsec releases the final figures.
“It is clear that a lot of students have failed to register mainly because of poverty but we have to wait for Zimsec to give the final figures and map the way forward from there,” said Minister Coltart.
He attributed the low levels of registration to loss of confidence in Zimsec by most parents in view of the rot that rocked the exam body in recent years.
“There is an increase in the number of students opting for Cambridge exams because Zimsec has failed the nation for many years,” he said, adding that some students had withdrawn from registering, as they had not had “enough preparations”.
Zimsec public relations manager Mr Ezekiel Pasipamire yesterday confirmed that preparations for Grade Seven exams were at an advanced stage, but said the loan uptake fell short of expectations.
“Grade Seven question papers and statement of entries have already been distributed to their respective centres.
“Preparations are going on well but turning to ‘O’ and ‘A’ Level registration, we are still compiling the figures but as it stands they have not improved much,” he said.
Last week, the examination body said 139 000 out of 380 000 pupils for both “O” and “A” Level examinations had managed to register by September 25.
Zimsec said of the 139 000, 120 400 were “O” Level students while 18 500 are “A” Level students compared to 239 430 for “O” Level and 138 000 for “A” Level last year.
The low levels of registration were also attributed to the failure by parents to raise the US$10 fee per “O” Level subject and US$20 per “A” Level subject.
It has emerged that the modalities by Government to have all the pupils registered failed to change the situation and thousands of students remain unregistered.
Mr Pasipamire said Zimsec required money to prepare and was hopeful Government would chip in. “Government is aware of Zimsec’s predicament. They have assured us that they will release money for the exams and we hope that everything is going to flow smoothly,” he said.