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MANICALAND Province, as per tradition, dominated the 2014 national O-Level results pass rates. In actual fact the province had four schools in the national Top 10 and three of them were in the Top Five. However, the provincial education directorate has brushed aside all these praises and is now focusing on the schools that produced zero percent pass rates. The schools with zero percent pass rate shot from 28 in 2013 to 42 last year, with the problem being mainly attributed to the mushrooming of satellite schools across the province.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education senior management meeting held in Nyanga on Monday and Tuesday, Provincial Education Director Mr Edward Shumba said they were going to work hard in order to address the situation.
“We need to tackle this monster called zero percent pass-rate. Ironically, some schools attained zero percent pass rate yet they have A-Level classes and we wonder where do they intend to get students from.
“We need to put our heads together and find out strategies to rectify the problem. We shall soon be holding a meeting with the District Education Officers and Education Inspectors to chart the way forward and we will possibly intensify our schools monitoring exercise,” he said.
The most affected districts are Chipinge, Makoni, Buhera and Mutare, which also happen to have the highest numbers of satellite schools in their districts, some of which having been necessitated by the land reform programme. The most common problems for the poor show by these schools singled out at the meeting were that there where rampant mismatches in schools, teachers without teaching methodology leading to poor syllabus interpretation and the poor state in which the satellite schools are, making them unable to attract adequate qualified teachers. The PED encouraged school heads to be very specific in acquiring teachers so that they are given the exact teacher for the particular subject.
“We have some situations where the head would write that hey need a Science teacher without specifying whether it’s a Chemistry, Physics or Integrated Science teacher. There should be no sacred sheep as we try to address these mismatches in our province,”he said.
On teachers without teaching methodology, having acquired degrees but without having gone through the teaching course, the delegates resolved that there would be staff development workshops to capacitate them.
Online Reporter