Exams pass rate shames coalition: Makoni

New Zimbabwe

By Brian Paradza

26 April 2013

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai should be ashamed of the 18 percent pass rate recorded in the November 2012 Ordinary Level schools exams, Mavambo Kusile leader Simba Makoni has said.

Makoni said the two leaders’ silence on the crisis in the country’s schools was illustrative of their contempt for the education sector and a lack of interest in the future of the country.

Results from last year’s O’Level exams showed that 81,6 percent of the 172,698 students who sat for the examinations failed to pass at least five subjects with grade C or better.

Only 31,767 of that number were successful, translating to a pass rate of 18,4 percent.

Said Makoni: “I went to school in Rhodesia, and from that time up to about 1992, the competition at O level was not on how many did well; it was based on how many passed with a first classgrades because all the classes passed.

“The competition among St Augustine, St Ignatius, Kutama, Goromonzi High and Fletcher High was not on how many students passed five subjects; it was how many passed twelve subjects with grades A and B.

“Today we discuss how many scrap through with five Ordinary levels. And we still claim we have the best education in Africa at 18 percent pass rate!

The former finance minister said the Zimbabwe’s education sector has continued to slide backwards over the years with South Africa and other African countries scoring better results over the years.

“I was in South Africa recently. You know matrix examinations have always been a disaster, but they are a disaster at 36 percent not at 18 percent and that does not touch the hearts of our so-called leaders.

“How many of you wrote anything from Robert Mugabe about the 18 percent pass rate? Zero, How many of you wrote anything from Prime Minister Tsvangirai about the 18 percent pass rate? Zero. They are not worried about that, yet this is our future”, said Makoni.

Education Minister David Coltart blamed the disappointing results on the “extreme crisis in education experienced between approximately 2005 and 2009”.

“I’m afraid that this was inevitable. There’s been so much chaos in Zimbabwe’s education system in the last decade that it was inevitable that children’s education would be affected in this way,” Coltart said in February.

“If you don’t have teachers, if you don’t have textbooks, ultimately literacy and numeracy proficiency drops, and that is eventually reflected in examination results.”

He however added that the only positive development was that more and more children were sitting examinations after a decade-long economic crisis devastated the education sector and led to massive drop-outs and teacher flight.