Zimsec holding us to ransom: School heads
IMAGINE going through a whole sermon of three hours at church and walking away without a clear picture of what exactly the preacher, priest, pastor or prophet meant, or spending hours in the library and still leaving none the wiser.
Just imagine waking up in the middle of the night, sweating and your heart pounding, aware that you were jolted from a bad dream, yet none of the details still click in your head.
That is the nature of the human brain, it grasps and loses, which is the reason why we keep on revising our work, especially so before examinations.
We dream every day and our dreams are usually linked to our experiences.
During a single night we go through many separate dreams, yet by the time we wake up we would have forgotten 95 percent of them.
We only remember those dreams that really have a bearing on our lives, and the rest are just meant to keep our brains conscious; they are not the main details of our lives.
So, as we go through our books, it does not mean that everything that we read is important to us, neither does all that is said by the pastor or prophet have a bearing on your lives; which is the reason why he or she cannot quote whole scriptures to drive home his ideas. Only a verse or two will suffice.
No single book can give you all that you need to be ready for your examinations, and not all that you come across every day is important to your own unique experiences.
This is the reason why the art of summarising is important to you.
You should learn to pick opportunity from experience, grain from chaff and honey from bile. Summarising is a life skill, which is not only confined to your study of English Language. Remember English is a language first and a subject second.
The summary writing task
Before you engage yourself in summary writing, you should know what exactly you want to achieve from the task, as this will help you in picking out the main points. Since the question on this task is worth 20 marks, you should aim for that mark. You cannot just let that slip because of mistakes that you can avoid.
Although the tips we are going to discuss today will help all those who want to hone their summary skills, they are especially meant for those preparing for the ZIMSEC English Language Syllabus 1122/2.
The Cambridge syllabus 0500 also follows a similar scope, although it varies now and again. The Cambridge 1123 syllabus, however, follows a different scope as the question will be divided into two parts.
Steps to follow
The following steps will help you in sharpening your summary writing skills. Go over them carefully.
◆ Read and understand the question:
POLYTECHNICS should embark on a relentless drive for adoption, adaptation and import substitution of advanced technologies in line with the policy of developing and adopting scientific technologies that make Zimbabwe competitive in the 21st Century, a Cabinet Minister said.
In a speech read on his behalf by the director of Higher Education Programmes Mrs Martha Muguti - during the 30thh Gweru Polytechnic College graduation ceremony yesterday - Higher and Tertiary Education, Science and Technology Development Minister Professor Amon Murwira, urged the graduates to add value to economic development of the country.
He said as the economy moves into a higher state of development, the creation of knowledge and its transfer to industries As we discussed in our lesson on comprehension passages, a question understood is half way answered, so it is important that you read the question carefully and underline key words. The question may also be divided into two or three parts, so you have to be very careful here.
◆ Identify the summary boundary: The summary boundary refers to the relevant paragraphs that you should use to answer the question. This will be indicated in the question, so what you simply have to do is to indicate it using a pencil. Using information outside this boundary renders your answer irrelevant.
◆ Read the passage underlining the main points: Now read the passage within your boundary, underlining key points and numbering them. Do not underline in textbooks. You can use a faint pencil to underline or you can write them on a separate piece of paper provided. NB: Please take note of this; for the ZIMSEC syllabus it is not necessary to use your own words (Cambridge 1123/0500, insists on this) because you are likely to lose the points; that is why you should pick them as they are given. Your points should be free of elaborations, examples, explanations and direct speech. Your tenses should be consistent. Try to pick more than 15 points. ◆ Make sure there is a subject and a verb in your points: Every point that you underline should have a subject and a verb, as this will help you to pick relebecomes more important.
“Polytechnics should embark on a relentless drive for adoption, adaptation and import substitution of advanced technologies in line with the policy of developing and adopting scientific technologies that make Zimbabwe competitive in the 21st Century,” he said.
“I wish to exhort Polytechnics to collaborate through partnerships within universities and private research organisations on mutually beneficial projects focusing on reverse engineering or duplicative imitations, innovation and incubation to enable the country to catch up with the developed countries.”
He said the tertiary education should no longer be viewed as an end in itself but as a means or high road to industrialisation and modernisation.
Polytechnics - he said - should be vant points. Assuming that the question is about Nicole’s feelings, thoughts and actions, the subject is Nicole and not Munashe or Tariro, which means whatever is not related to her is irrelevant. The feelings, thoughts and actions are the verbs. Note also that this question is divided into three parts.
In some cases a question may have more than one subject, and in such instances you should not mix them up. You may also be asked to imagine yourself as Nicole, the narrator or the writer, which means you substitute Nicole or the pronoun she for “I” and the verbs will remain the same.
◆ Link your points in continuous writing in a rough draft: Time permitting, it is important to write a rough draft first. The space provided in your paper may be inadequate, so you should ask for separate blank sheets. If it is not an examination you should write your draft in your exercise book.
You may have been told that you should link your points using conjunctions, but this may expose you to grammatical mistakes, and besides it wastes words. If you decide to use these discourse markers (conjunctions) like however, furthermore, moreover, meanwhile, notwithstanding, although, despite, whereas and many more, you should bear in mind that they should be followed by a comma, immediately or at the break of the contrast.
When linking points simply use capital letters and full stops to separate them, so that you do not make mistakes. DO NOT positioned as natural strategic partners of industry through the development of robust programmes and cutting edge projects and innovations which unlock value in businesses and create wealth for the country.
Prof Murwira said a rich nexus ought to be created between Polytechnic education and the country’s industrial policy adding that the key factors in the success of industrial policies are coordination between Government agencies and cooperation between industry and academia.
“Government policies on education and training pursued in harmony with other economic and social policies help substantially in establishing and maintaining such dynamic processes.
‘‘In other words education and training policies should be closely coordinated with industrial policy,” he said. use conjunctions, especially those you are unfamiliar with. You may join two points using “and” and no more.
Count the number of words used in the rough draft: Now count the number of words used and check for any grammatical, spelling or punctuation errors. If your draft is more than the required 160 words, reduce them through careful editing.
◆ Write your final draft and cancel out the rough draft: You should write your final draft before you cancel out the rough one, because you may run out of time. Your final draft should be free of any errors discussed above. Make sure that your final draft is within the required number of words. It should not be more than 160 words and it should not be less than 126 words if you are aiming for 20 marks. Indicate the number of words used in brackets.
Awarding of marks
Marks are awarded as follows: 15 marks for points and five marks for mechanical accuracy. For every correct point you will be awarded a mark up to a total of 15. The mechanical accuracy mark is awarded based on the number of words used on a sliding scale.
However, you lose half a mark for every grammatical, spelling, tense or punctuation error up to 10. Which means if you make 10 mistakes then you lose the five marks on mechanical accuracy, but your points still score regardless of the errors as long as they are clear.
Gweru Polytechnic College principal Mr Washington Chandiwana said of the 719 graduates who received certificates, Diplomas and Higher National Diplomas, 329 were male and 390 female.
He said from the Technical and Vocational Teacher Education Programme-16-graduates received their University of Zimbabwe Diplomas.
“The pass rate for HEXCO programmes for the period under review is 72percent, whilst that of Teacher Education Programme is 83percent. The overall pass rate is 72 percent,” he said.
“Gweru Polytechnics enrolment increased from 1727 in 2017 to 2322 in 2019 which is a 34 percent increase.
‘‘However there is need for additional lecturing staff, workshops, classrooms and funds for equipment and consumables,” he said. THE Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (Zimsec) has come under fire for allegedly holding schools to ransom over its “confusing” security procedures.
School heads who spoke to The Herald this week said they were getting a raw deal from the examinations body.
They said they were being forced to travel to district cluster centres every day, with examination scripts and answer sheets at their own expense.
One primary school head from Zaka said they were abiding by the order under protest.
He said all examination centres had locker rooms for safe storage of exam material yet they were being made to collect examination scripts and return answer sheets on the same day.
Another high school head from Gutu echoed similar sentiments, saying the worrying part was that they were meeting all the expenses, which were not covered by fees collected from learners.
“Zimsec has made our lives unbearable as rural schools. We use our own transport to and from the cluster centre. We are not provided with fuel or transport. Our learners pay a paltry $50 as school fees per term,” he said.
“We need at least $1 500 to transport the papers to and from the centres for the duration of examination and this figure may double given the hyper-inflationary environment.”
However, Zimsec spokesperson Ms Nicky Dlamini vehemently dismissed the allegations saying they were not true.
“Some of these allegations are not genuine. Maybe you are looking for a story because it is not true that schools are forced to travel every day to collect the scripts and submit answer sheets,” said Ms Dlamini.
She said examinations material was kept at district cluster centres in cases where schools had no proven secure infrastructure.
“Examination scripts can be kept at district cluster centres if it is proven that the schools have no secure infrastructure. My official comment is that it is a lie that schools are forced to travel,” she said.
She said colleges in urban centres were the only institutions required to collect scripts from Zimsec offices, every day as they had the means to do so.