Study indicts Zim education system

17 units.
He is placed in the worst Form One class available at a Harare school.
But the boy is determined to break the curse by taking a challenge that most would argue as risky and ambitious.
Rodgers pulled out of formal education system and registered for Cambridge IGCSE last year.
He enrolled for the M(X) KOPS System, a stimulation programme designed by Mr Royson Chinyanga, a Zimbabwean dietician and researcher living and working in the United Kingdom.
From the Form Two class, Rodgers takes lessons for four months and sits for Cambridge Ordinary Level examinations.
The student whose teachers had lost faith in obtains a 71 percent pass in IGCSE Biology and 48 percent in IGCSE English.

This year, he sat for both Cambridge and Zimsec June O’ Level exams after studying for 30 days.
Rodgers proves his critics wrong when he again scored a B in Mathematics and E in English.
For the Zimsec O Level June examination he got a C in Mathematics and another C in English.

How then did this “write-off” survive the “bad weather”?
Rodgers’ performance raises questions about many issues.
Is it not the time to reintroduce ZJC examinations that are both parents funded and Government monitored to allow national testing of students during the first two years of secondary education?
Should Zimsec make the argument to all parents of failed students that the reintroduction of parental self-funded ZJC is critical to evaluate their children?

Does Mr Chinyanga’s programme adequately prepare students for the outside world?
Mr Chinyanga argues that his syllabus is not a crash programme, but a common sense system, a tried and tested revolutionary way of learning.
“Entwistle (1991) recognises the existence of different learning styles and that a student is a direct reflective product of their teaching styles. He also warns of the dangers of allowing one particular approach to teaching that may result in exclusion of other students. He argues against extreme teaching methods or philosophy of education that excludes others.

“My system refuses to accept his findings on extreme teaching but it recognises that students’ academic behaviour and thinking style are indeed a true reflection of their teachers. This is in agreement with the Universal Industrial production law, which states that garbage in garbage out. You get exactly what you put into the system of your child,” says Mr Chinyanga.
He adds that the M(X) KOPS System has shown that a Universal application of one type of learning style for students should exist.
“My undergraduate study research on the hyper activation of velvet monkey sperms reconnected me to the similarities of Human beings with our evolutionary ancestors.

“It made me to return back to the basics and to seek a common and Universal learning ground for all mankind. After years of primate readings and observations, including testing of my hypothesis on human subjects I concluded that students can benefit from my designed study system called (MX KOPS System,” he asks.
MX KOSP System argues that any student who undergoes the process can attain expert levels of any subject of their choice within 30 days of exposure.
“All primates use this system of learning and all my human pilot studies have excelled using that approach. Private children from richer elite schools in Zimbabwe who have privately accessed the MX -KOPS system over only 30 days have shown 100 percent improvement in any subject on return to their schools.

“MX KOPS system now argues that GCSE O-Levels subject standard must and can be attained within a year not over four years as has been the standard for generations. It argues that parents and teachers must refrain from the belief that the bitter and dirtier the medicine the greater its treatment efficacy.
“KOPS was used on Rodgers in GCSE Biology and he got a B in his IGCSE Examinations November 2010 at the age of 13 soon after attaining 17 units at grade seven.
“A deeper analysis of the percentages marks obtained in the 2010 Examination results showed the existence of an inducing effect of my system and its transference to other subjects and the impact of MX KOPS system on the thinking process,” he explains.

To validate his conclusions and observations, Mr Chinyanga says he invited the subject to UK for 30 days tutorial of his system face-to-face.
“I choose to teach M(X) KOPS System in Maths and kept English as a control subject. On arrival Rodgers was KOPS tested in Maths and scored 10 percent in Paper 4 Extended Maths.
“He was then exposed to the MX KOPS system for 30 days. I was baffled with the incremental increases in his scored mark that now averaged between 70-84 percent in Maths Extended Paper 4 at the end of the 30 days,” he notes.

Mr Chinyanga said while in the UK, Rodgers enrolled into a comparative study of Zimsec and Cambridge Examinations on similar subjects and but decided against not to teach Zimsec, Maths and English until when he returned to Zimbabwe.
He said the detailed analysis of the outcomes showed that all taught MX KOPS subjects for both Cambridge and Zimsec were passed.

He says the results were a welcome development to many parents in Zimbabwe who cannot afford high exam fees for Cambridge and had come to believe that Zimsec was inferior to Cambridge even in the absence of credible comparative studies.
Mr Chinyanga argues that although similar equivalency was proven the age of the student and the rate at which GCSE standard can be achieved, this puts into question the notion that secondary education requires four years of study and our warped belief that academic maturity is linked to existence of grey hair (age).

“It cannot be true that we can learn about expert handling and money acquisition from poor persons. Phillip Chiyangwa refused to be taught how to acquire or handle money from his poor parents.
“He learnt through observation and inducement. If the aim of education is to teach us how to think and be able to transform ourselves to be useful members of society, free of petty cultural prejudices then indeed education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learnt in school,” Mr Chinyanga says.

He advises that the creation of a Parental Consultative Education Board with Legal Powers to influence any proposed educational changes could be platform for positive change.
“Surely parents are not in it, we will not win it or it will be curved for us by forces that are alien to our own situations. Our children have in the past two years been held to ransom by teachers demanding extras to teach our children.
The system does not replace the greater valuable uses of a qualified teacher but provides an alternative option for each parent knowledgeable that academic aging is the greatest disadvantage to a student.

In 2007, the system showed through Nyasha Guzha that A-Level Maths, Chemistry and Biology can be studed in less than five months post Zimsec O-Levels.
She is now in her final two months of Pharmacy Degree study, three years ahead of her secondary level peers.
He says to ignite the debate here is what (MX) KOPS System proposes to replace what was ZJC with Ordinary level and Form 3 with A level.
Adds Mr Chinyanga: “What this means is that when our kids turn 16, they will be entering University, and we have our first graduates at 19/20 years depending on whether its a three or four-year degree.

“This saves parents and the nation a lot of money but also gives kids a long and rewarding working career with lots of innovation or entrepreneurship or entrepreneurship due to their young minds.”
He suggest that to avoid disruption, primary school curricula should remain as is for now, but at grade six all barriers of learning should be torn including the phrases like “5-7 = it cant”.
“We do not change the syllabi for O level but we teach the first 2 years (ZJC) in 1 year and the next two years (O level) in another year. We must conduct an immediate review of our syllabus and modernise its content.”

A lecturer from Bindura University of Science Education Mr Sarathiel Chaipa says Mr Chinyanga’s methodology is a revolutionary one arguing that it gives a critique to the current educational system.
“If you recall there was the Nziramasanga Commission some years back which had sought to make some changes to our educational system, but that was never implemented. Even so, the M(X) KOPS System is a more universal knowledge transfer mechanism that does not focus on the natural intelligence of children but focuses on making sure every child understands whatever subject matter is subjected to him,” he observes.

He advocated its adoption arguing: “Our failure rates are huge especially in the science subjects (mathematics, physics, chemistry, integrated science, geography, etc) and no one has ever bothered to come up with a corrective mechanism to arrest this trend.
“Mr Chinyanga has been bold enough to come up with a methodology that is more universal and worth pursuing. We need to be innovative and entrepreneurial in our thinking; this is what Mr Chinyanga has done.
“Parents are paying school fees, exorbitant in some cases. Almost every child is going for extra lessons, but are these extra lessons really giving the expected results?”

He said when the results are published failures become statistics with no one going back to say sorry to parents who would have parted with their hard cash in the name of extra lessons for no gain.
“In the six years that pupils study up to Advanced Level, parents would have paid 18 sets of fees each term. With Mr Chinyanga’s methodology, we cut the total fees paid ensuring poor parents afford to send their children up to Advanced Level.
“I hereby question the effective time teachers spend delivering lessons to children in our schools especially these current years?”

He notes that Zimsec is a deduction of the old Cambridge syllabi.
“Cambridge on the other had has been softening their material. In this respect, Zimsec is more challenging than Cambridge. I feel that Zimsec is pitched high, but the only problem that has led to discredit them is poor management of the examinations.
“Exams have leaked in a number of cases, markers has been under paid for many years leading to their refusal to mark in some cases adding to the mountain of problems in the management of our local exams.”

He adds that money is never a motivator when it comes to the ways teachers impart their knowledge to students.
“Take a look at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and see at what level money is placed. There is need to question our subject delivery methods. Are we applying methods that will ensure success in 90 percent of the children and not 10 percent? There is need to continuously research our teaching philosophies.
“Let’s not just accept what we learn. There is need to critic these traditional methods and invention of new ones, like what Mr Chinyanga is doing.
“President Mugabe years back questioned the bookish knowledge that we always accepted. There is need to always question the status quo and seek ways to improve it, tat is development,” he says.

Given good administration, he said, ZIMSEC was more difficult and rigorous than Cambridge.
“Stimulation does work. Look at Rodgers, he came out with 7/9 units in Grade 7 Maths but went on to pass both Cambridge and ZIMSEC. “With the traditional delivery method, these pupils did not do well. It is only after being subjected to Mr Chinyanga’s M(X) KOPS System that we see these pupils passing, meaning that his methodology has aspects which are totally different from our traditional one,” he says.

He feels more needs to be done for slow learners.
“Instead of the teachers questioning the failure of traditional methods on their class, they are preoccupied with negative perceptions about this whole class.
“Mr Chinyanga refuses to accept this. The major shortfall incorporates the lack to motivate the children. Our teachers fail to instill self confidence in the children. The children in turn lack faith and confidence in themselves which are the two ingredients for a success,” he said.

Other educational experts however said such an educational system ignores the importance of maturation in education and training.
They said there were certain concepts that needed a particular age to be fully grasped.
Deputy Minister of Education, Sports, Arts and Culture Lazarus Dokora, himself a teacher, said there is an appreciation of concepts that comes with maturity.

“This research is likely to push children through the system when they can not apply the concepts learnt to the natural world.
“It is no use parroting geo physical concepts when you cannot apply them to the world. There is a correlation between psychological development and understanding of complexities,” he said
He said in primary education there is the concept of cyclical approach where concepts are introduced early but are broken into smaller units to allow the process of maturation.

“Take for instance the concept of fire can be introduced in Grade 1, a pupil will find it again in Grade 3 and later Grade 5 and so on. This promotes understanding and appreciation of the concept of fire.
“The question to ask Mr Chiyangwa’s system or research results is; are the necessary safeguards in place to ensure that the pupils master concepts for use in later life. Rushing the children through the education system is likely to turn our children into Zombies,” he said.

Another educationist said the programme was being pushed by the ‘conveyor belt type of educational production’ where the focus on mere passing of academic subjects and not the total development of the individual.

“Why rush the child through school? The education system is designed to allow education to correlate with physical development of the child. Our environment plays a crucial part in our understanding and any design that ignores that is detrimental to child development,” she said.
Mr Chaipa said the nation should just not dismiss Mr Chinyanga’s findings adding that BUSCE’s Faculty of Science Education would soon launch a research programme to evaluate the M(X) KOP’s system.

“We will be selecting the worst performing school in our neighbourhood, and selecting the worst 2012, Form 4 class to test this methodology. We want to prove or disprove this methodology.
“Its success will be a positive contribution while its failure will not be a waste of time but a move in the right direction of wanting to improve our educational system,” he says.
With the study already showing results the question remains: “Is Zimbabwe ready to accept a “black Entwistle” who is willing to prove a Universal theory that has been used all over the world wrong.”