WHERE DID THE PE EXAM RESULTS GO?
Kgari Sechele Senior School candidates are left in limbo because of missing 2022 Botswana General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGCSE) Physical Education Paper Two results.
About 79 PE candidates were graded on Paper 1 marks and awarded grade F, G and U after the practical paper marks were allegedly not uploaded properly on the MALEPA examination processing system. At first, it was indicated that the marks were outstanding and students were surprised when collecting their result slips to find out that they were actually graded and failed on Paper One only instead of both papers.
Parents of the affected students wrote a letter of complaint to the Botswana Examinations Council (BEC) and the school management last month, inquiring about the missing marks but they are yet to get a response.
Speaking to The Voice this week, one of the concerned parents, Realeboga Nkolane, said from the preliminary investigations, it is alleged that teachers did not upload marks on the MALEPA system.
“I do not understand why our kids are punished for the BEC system fault. The surprising part is that the marks uploaded by teachers are not the actual grading marks but just guiding marks. The actual marks are awarded after completion of the BEC moderation exercise. One of the teachers at Kgari Sechele, who was a moderator at BEC, said she knows the projects were received and Paper Two was moderated. We do not know what happened to the marks after that,” said Nkolane.
MARKS
Nkoane further noted that the missing marks have negatively affected the candidates because tertiary institutions are currently receiving applications for their 2023 intake and they can’t apply because they are waiting for the final response. Some of the students want to apply for Russian scholarships but they are disadvantaged by the missing marks. According to Nkolane, the school management said BEC has promised to give them feedback on their query before the end of this week.
Meanwhile, BEC Corporate Communication Manager, Fingile Makgalemele, said Kgari Sechele School PE results are complete but there is a procedure that school examination centres are expected to follow to resolve the issue.
“The BEC has customer service standards and takes the issue of enquiries about results seriously. The BEC takes serious precaution when dealing with such and ensures that they act on the matter as quickly as possible, within set timelines. However, sometimes, because of the nature (complexity) of the inquiry, it takes much longer to resolve, especially if an investigation is involved. This is why it is important for the centre to submit the query on time so that it can be resolved within the six weeks set for exam results period,” said Makgalemele.