O-Level results: Who is to blame?

The Sunday Mail

By Lincoln Towindo and Shamiso Yikoniko

10 February 2013

Results from the country’s 2012 public examinations have generated debate, with many people bemoaning the poor performance exhibited by last year’s Ordinary Level students. While the country has been recording a steady improvement in pass rates at both Grade Seven and Advanced Level, there has been concern over the depressed pass rates at Ordinary Level.

Out of the 172 689 candidates who registered for five subjects or more in public examinations last year, only 31 767 candidates managed passes in at least five subjects.

The total number of candidates who registered for the exams increased by 11,3 percent to 268 854, up from 241 512 in 2011.
Results from last year’s examinations show that the O-level pass rate stood at 18,4 percent, which is a 1,1 percent drop from the 2011 statistics.

However, does the “poor performance” come as a shocker?

Statistics show that the average O-level pass rate since 1998 stands at a minuscule 14,5 percent.

The figures show that since the introduction of local examinations the highest pass rate was attained in 2006 when 20,16 percent of the students that had registered passed five or more subjects.

The lowest rate was recorded in 2003 after only 12,8 percent of students who sat for five or more subject passed. However, despite the background that the country has only breached the 20 percent mark once over the past 15 years, a storm has erupted from many sections of society who felt that this year the pass rate was “unacceptably low”.

Educationist and distance learning pioneer Dr Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said good results were a sum of many aspects. “The attainment of any level’s results is a process not an event. For a country to get excellent results, it needs to take into account teacher motivation, student preparedness and a good learning environment,” said Dr Ndlovu.

“The major problem that we have is that the Government does not have a firm policy on educational evaluation. At the moment we are speculating on what could have been done, but what the country needs is an evaluation system that will help us find solutions to improve the education system.”

Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Senator David Coltart has blamed the dismal pass rates on lack of funding, teaching staff and the “extreme crisis” in education experienced between 2005 and 2009.

Professor Jonathan Moyo, a legislator, former lecturer and Cabinet minister, said Minister Coltart was being insincere. “While it is of course true and thus undeniable that the education sector took a battering between 2005 and 2009 when the effects of Western illegal economic sanctions combined with the hyperinflationary consequences of excessive quantitative easing otherwise known as “money printing”, Coltart’s reference to this truth explains why the high 2012 failure rate in “O” Level examinations is naively opportunistic,” wrote Prof Moyo.

Comparatively, in 2009, a total 272 397 candidates sat for the Grade 7 examinations recording a 20,11 percent pass rate and the rate has since risen to 31,5 percent from the 292 375 pupils who sat for the examinations last year. The pass rate for Advanced Level increased from 75,99 percent in 2010 to 85,25 percent in 2011 before subsequently dropping to 82,9 percent last year.

Zimbabwe is currently battling to beef up its teaching staff following an exodus of the professionals to better-paying countries. The country has a teaching staff compliment of about 106 000 out of the required 136 000.

Most schools have had to rely on relief teachers in the absence of qualified personnel. This has seen some A-level graduates taking up teaching posts for O-level classes.

Rural schools which contribute a huge chunk of the 8 000 Government schools countrywide barely have qualified teachers. Most qualified teachers shun practising at rural schools because of the absence of motivating allowances. The rural teachers have also failed to benefit from “incentives” being enjoyed by their counterparts in urban schools as in most cases rural parents cannot afford the extra payments. Experts say it is, therefore, no surprise that rural schools are the major contributors to the failure rate. However, United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) Zimbabwe chief of communication Mr Victor Chinyama said through the Education Transition Fund (ETF) it was hoped O-Level results would improve.

“Unicef is fully committed to supporting the Government of Zimbabwe in its continued efforts to revive the education sector,” he said
“Through the ETF, we have distributed 22 million textbooks to both primary and secondary schools in Zimbabwe so far, and we hope to see an improvement in O-Level results in the coming years.”

Unlike in the past when supplementary learning avenues such as night schools were widespread, there are now no formal institutions to cater for those supplementing failed subjects.

This has left “private” candidates to fend for themselves without the guidance of qualified educators. Educationists also blame the proliferation of backyard private colleges offering sub-standard tutoring for the dismal pass rates. Most of the colleges which are situated at private homes do not have qualified teachers or relevant learning material.

Mr Lovemore Chipangura, a Harare-based educationist, believes the abolishment of the Zimbabwe Junior Certificate (ZJC) in 2001 has contributed to poor pass rates.

“The abolishing of ZJC examination by Government resulted in students being tested only once during their four years at secondary school. What we are witnessing today is a direct result of that ill-conceived idea and until such a time that our pupils are tested regularly we will continue struggling. The current system results in students sitting for O-level unprepared, thereby contributing to the poor pass rate.”

ZJC was meant to be a mid-way test created to gauge the pupils’ progress during the first two years in secondary school.
There have also been calls for emphasis to be placed on vocational subjects, but Prof Moyo said this argument is being peddled by racists who claim that blacks are intellectually inferior.

Minister Coltart said Government will this year begin implementing findings of the Nziramasanga Commission on Education. The Nziramasanga Commission of 1999 was instituted as a starting point in overhauling the country’s education system which was last reviewed in 1986.

The commission recommended that academic education on its own was not entirely beneficial and the school curriculum should suit essential skills and employment requirements.

“The Nziramasanga commission said that our education system was too academic oriented and there was a need to move towards making it more vocationally relevant,” he said. Starting this year we will be implementing some of these recommendations. We are also always open to the idea of re-introducing the ZJC public examinations as part of the continuous assessment of childrens’ progress in school. However, the important thing to do is to focus on teachers, that is, to ensure that we have teachers in class and enough education material for the students. That way results will certainly improve.”

Countered Prof Moyo: “To put it mildly, Coltart, like the architects of Rhodesian racist education before him, is basically saying that blacks have no academic orientation and cannot be taught through mind-based pedagogy that is cerebral or academic but are rather better taught through observational or so-called practical pedagogy that is based on the ‘monkey-see-monkey-do’ colonial and UDI modules.”

Added Prof Moyo: “The fact that Coltart opportunistically cites the findings of the 1999 Nziramasanga Commission in support of his Rhodesian position whose objectives are the opposite of the goals of that Commission is enough to prove his sinister and unacceptable agenda.”

Minister Coltart said Government will not consider lowering the O-level pass mark. “No, we will not consider lowering the pass mark level because that way we will not have a correct appreciation of the real situation. That would be a case of fooling ourselves and defeating the purpose of education. If you lower the pass mark level you will deceive the nation and yourself that children are actually learning something at school.”