adminPerspective Stephen Mpofu
With 16 state and private universities for a population of just over 14 million people as at 2013, Zimbabwe has done incredibly more in education than what even some so-called developed countries can boast. When the phenomenal growth in primary and secondary education after blacks came to power in 1980 is added to the above statistics, it should not come as a surprise to anyone anywhere on the globe that this small country has the highest literacy rate on the African continent. But wait for it.
Some Machiavellian characters are busy every year gnawing, like rats, at Zimbabwe’s educational feat so that, if no one descends on these deceitful people the country’s reputation might eventually be reduced to a proverbial paper tiger, and with that the reputation of conscientious bookworms will have been in vain on both the local and the international labour markets.
This pen is seriously concerned at the rate at which people driven by invested interests have been fiddling with public examinations over the years, giving the Zimbabwe Examinations Council nightmares each year as examination leaks tend to dilute the quality of the country’s highly competitive education.
Cases of people sitting exams for relatives or friends as well as teachers leaking exam papers to students should be dealt with such severity as will in the final analysis remain only as a proverb when posterity looks back at the growth of Zimbabwe’s educational system
It is therefore most commendable, and timely, that the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education came out recently pushing hard for custodial sentences for people dirtying the country’s reputable literacy rate by aiding students to pass exams for which they have not prepared adequately, with the result that candidates proceed to colleges or universities on the strength of dubious passes, in some cases taking the places of deserving students.
The ultimate result can only be obvious to anyone: poor qualifications that lead to lower standards in jobs by those who take shortcuts to try to achieve high goals in life.
Or is it any surprise that some people who claim to be highly educated settle for mediocre jobs because they know only too well that they do not qualify for something better since they did not sweat for better things but wormed their way in their training through unorthodox routes?
Thus, the concern of the government is understandable in so far as the whole quality of education in the country might, for instance, be questioned by other countries which might even go as far as locking out Zimbabwean jobseekers to protect their own standards from being subverted by foreigners they suspect to be under qualified.
Here at home, also, a pervasive fear and suspicion might start to rein among prospective employers that graduates approaching them for jobs might be some of those students who faked their passes at school and might therefore be a liability with poor products that might cost the employer’s reputation on the market.
So it is only logical that the rot should be brought to an abrupt and complete end by instilling the fear of the law and of God among potential leakers of examination papers as well as among the intended beneficiaries.
But the onus is on the legislature to pass a law that will empower the courts to weed out the leakers and their beneficiaries by incarcerating them.
Talking and ranting without being seen to act decisively against wrongdoers will achieve nothing when all is considered. Yet the government’s efforts in providing an educational system that is second to none must be supported with measures that will continue to strengthen rather than maintain high standards.
Long jail sentences for those who expose examination papers and a blacklist for students that are benefiting from the offence will no doubt restore sanity to our educational system; otherwise the situation might get out of hand with dire consequences for both the system of education and the country’s image at large.
Online Reporter