IMPROVING ZAMBIA’S GRIM BENCHMARK IN EDUCATION STANDARDS
…poor reading culture …low literacy levels
ZAMBIA has reached a grim benchmark in education standards. This calls for urgent measures to address a situation that would undermine the nation’s development goals if left unchecked.
To understand and grasp the full extent of the decline in education standards, one needs to examine the performance of pupils.
The various research and surveys that have been carried out in the last ten years have shown that the literacy and numeracy levels of Zambian learners is below that of their counterparts in the sub region.
To illustrate, Zambia was ranked 14th out of 15 countries by a survey measuring pupil achievement by the Southern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Education Quality (SACMEQ).
The survey examined reading and mathematics performance of learners at grade 6 level in Botswana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, the Seychelles, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zanzibar, and Zimbabwe.
Historical performance in reading in English recorded the following 33.2% (1999), 33.4% (2001), 33.9% (2003), 34.4% (2006), 35.3% (2008), 34.12% (2012) and 32. 05% (2014), whilst in numeracy the performance has been 34.3% (1999), 35.7% (2001), 38.5% (2003), 38.5% (2006), 39.3% (2008), 38.3% (2012) and 35.49% (2014).
Similarly, findings of poor pupil performance in earlier grades have been reported by the Examination Council of Zambia (ECZ) and Early Grade Reading and Mathematics in Zambia (EGRMZ) from 1999 to 2015.
On a literacy level, EGRMZ reported that most grade 2 pupils were struggling to read fluently. At best a learner at that level could not string words together into a coherent sentence.
They also did not fare any better when it came to mathematics. In addition and subtraction, nearly 50% of the pupils surveyed scored zero, an indication that they had not learned how to solve complex problems.
LACK OF PROFESSIONALISM
To address problems associated with low pupil performance requires looking at teacher performance and school leadership.
According to statistics, school leadership contributes 20% towards the learner’s performance, whilst a combination of leadership and teacher performance contribute 70% while learning infrastructure and resources contribute 30%.
Therefore, teachers that have the content, pedagogy, continuous professional development coupled by passion and commitment are likely to produce outstanding learner performance.
However, the current situation stifles passionate and committed teachers.
A myriad of issues are at play, starting with posting and transfers all the way down to enforcing discipline.
Briefly, nearly all qualified teachers are employed and posted to remote rural schools with the promise that after serving for two years they would be transferred to urban areas.
Unfortunately, this promise is not fulfilled. Teachers remain in rural schools for a very long time, at times at the expense of their families, and husband and wife are posted in different provinces.
It is also true that teachers who are strongly connected by heavyweights in the public sector never get posted to rural areas.
This double standard does not only lead to overstaffing
in urban schools while rural ones remained thinly staffed but also leads to frustration among teachers.
On appointments, confirmations and promotions, it is not uncommon to have unfilled vacancies for years, a situation that has earned the term of ‘warming the chair’ for teachers who act in those positons without being confirmed.
Teachers that ‘warm the chairs’ often feel frustrated because they carry out the job effectively but are not considered for that position.
While promotion must be based on merit, fortunately, teachers come to realise that is not the case in most cases.
When all else fails the teachers resort to politics as there is a deep-seated belief that being politically connected would get one promoted.
When it comes to enforcing discipline, it is not uncommon to see erring teachers go scot-free. In some cases there are wrongdoers who are perceived as untouchables.
All these issues go to the core of undermining professionalism among teachers.
There has been an ongoing debate as to whether teachers are professionals and the answer has been no.
The reason that has been advanced has been, unlike Lawyers who are professional, teachers lack a regulating body such as the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ). With the establishment of the Teaching Council, a teacher’s regulatory body, things should change.
HARMONISING FUNCTIONS
I strongly believe that to sanitise the Teaching profession, the Teaching Service Commission (TSC) and the Teaching Council of Zambia (TCoZ) have to play a key role.
The role of TSC as an employer of the teacher must be strengthened to appoint, promote, confirm and discipline erring teachers.
Alongside this, TCoZ must as a matter of urgency produce and publish a teachers’ register and fully operalisationalise related functions of monitoring professionalism.
For example, on the basis of an inspection report, a teacher can be deregistered and ultimately dismissed.
In order for the inspectorate function to be effective, there is need to decentralise right down to the district level.
Overall, the two bodies working together would help to inject high levels of professionalism among teachers.
In this way, teachers would a great deal of time in class towards meeting prescribed benchmarks.
OPERATIONALISE BENCHMARKS
Talking about benchmarks, the Zambia Qualification Authority (ZQA) must with the greatest urgency establish qualification frameworks which would serve as acceptable criteria for learner performance for each level of education.
This, coupled by enhanced teacher professionalism and school governance, would rapidly bring about the much desired improvement in education standards as both private and public schools would be held accountable based on the same criteria.