ZIMBABWE: Crisis in ministry of education delays thousands of students from writting their exams

Record ID: 776031

  • Title: ZIMBABWE: Crisis in ministry of education delays thousands of students from writting their exams
  • Date: 24th November 2009
  • Summary: HARARE, ZIMBABWE (RECENT) (REUTERS) STUDENTS OUTSIDE TRAINING COLLEGE COLLEGE BILLBOARD EXAMS IN PROGRESS NOTICE BOARD
  • Embargoed: 9th December 2009 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Zimbabwe
  • Country: Zimbabwe
  • Topics: Domestic Politics,Education
  • Reuters ID: LVAERWGU37ES6DQGWZ3L66VQCWLD
  • Story Text: Confusion reigns once again in the education sector as uncertainty shrouds this year's national examinations.
    According to the national schools calendar Ordinary and Advanced Level students should now be writing the final year examination papers, but they have not even started the first paper.
    Students are worried that will interrupt their schooling.
    "Probably it has to disturb our pass rate somehow but we really feel this is setback because we are supposed to be ending by now we are going to be starting sometime next week, of which it's really a setback," said Tendai, a student.
    The Zimbabwe Schools Examinations Council (ZIMSEC), a government examinations board responsible for setting and marking the examinations, has delayed the examinations.
    Early this year ZIMSEC could not pay the examination markers for last year's exams and by the time the results were released most students had started repeating the year in private colleges.
    This examinations fiasco casts a dark cloud on ZIMSEC's capability to mark and deliver the results next year.
    The Progressive Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) leader Raymond Majongwe said they had asked the Ministry of Education to scrap this year's examinations as the year was marred with teacher's strikes due to poor remuneration leading to students not getting proper lessons.
    "Government has not listened to the stakeholders it started right at the early start of the year that 2008 was a lost academic year and we needed to sit down as stakeholders and possibly forego the whole year and start afresh because these are exactly the same kids who did not go through any process of education whom we are now taking to the slaughter for an examination which is ill prepared," said Raymond Majongwe, president of the Progressive Teachers Association.
    Although the majority of students have lost confidence in the government board they have no choice but to continue writing the ZIMSEC set exams as Cambridge, the once favoured international board, is no longer part of the Zimbabwe education curriculum.
    Although it is available in private colleges only children of the wealthy in society can afford Cambridge.
    "We discovered that only 30 percent of kids in this country had registered to write exams, even if they gave another grace period and opened it up, I think there was basically a 7 or 8 percent increment," said Majongwe.
    Examination fees for Cambridge are costing 20 US dollars per subject whilst ZIMSEC is costing 10 US dollars per subject a fee most parents claim is unaffordable especially for those in the rural areas.
    For parents, this is another hurdle as some say they paying school fees while their children are not allowed to sit for their exams.
    "It's a very big problem because it just doesn't affect only our kids it affects us as parents because really we had planned before hand financially and I'm expecting good results from my kids but the thing with this delay can affect them in a certain way, and I am not sure and I have to plan for their schooling next year and I need their results," said an unidentified Harare resident.
    Majongwe called ZIMSEC a flawed board full of corruption and uneducated officials, at a time when Zimbabwe needs to create an educated labour force to resuscitate the country's economy.
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