Teachers hail Govt for suspending continuous assessment of pupils
TEACHERS have commended Government for suspending continuous assessment for Ordinary Level and Advanced Level pupils that was meant to start this year.
Under the regime, starting this year, O-Level and A-Level pupils were expected to be graded on the basis of combined marks for continuous assessment and final examinations in keeping with provisions of the updated education curriculum.
Teachers through their unions said their engagements with Primary and Secondary Education Minister Professor Paul Mavima were beginning to pay off as he was taking heed of their recommendations.
The Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association (Zimta) welcomed the decision to take on board their recommendations’.
“We applaud Government through the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education for taking Zimta’s advice proffered on 12 December 2017 that some aspects of the new curriculum need review and halting before full implementation.
We also welcome the suspension of the continuous assessment because it allows for a more scholastic scrutinisation of the CA (Continuous Assessment) process so as to restore reliability, validity, trustworthiness of the entire assessment module,” said Zimta in a statement.
The association said the suspension will give Zimsec enough time to put its house in order and train teachers on the assessment module.
Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe (PTUZ) president, Dr Takavafira Zhou, echoed the same sentiments.
“The scrapping of projects for A-Level and OLevel students this year is a welcome move and it’s in tandem with our recommendations to the Ministry of Education, to Zimsec and other educators at our January symposium.
“We are quite happy about that. Realistically, it was a good move by the Minister but we encourage him to look at the other recommendations that we submitted to him,” said Mr Zhou.
He said they were waiting for the Government to state the way forward as the suspension is only effective for the two examination sitting grades.
“While he has banned the projects and tasks for this year 2018, he is silent on what will happen in the future”, said Dr Zhou.
He urged Government to look at other shortcomings in the new curriculum.
Dr Zhou said there was also an issue to do with compulsory subjects at secondary school that do not give a career path.
He also said the tasks must be be practically oriented and not theory.
“We don’t necessarily need to reduce a project or task into writing because those who are brilliant in music can simply produce their music and they are assessed in terms of their singing and not necessarily in writing a 15 page document,” he said.
Form Four pupils who spoke to The Chronicle said they were happy that the tasks which were time consuming had been scrapped.
“Tasks were very difficult particularly here in town because when we went to industries, most officials were not willing to be interviewed,” said Nokukhanya Dube.
Other pupils paid tribute to the Minister saying it would give them more time to study and prepare for examinations. “I was contemplating shifting to Cambridge because this thing of tasks was boring and needed a lot of time and money to do. I no longer had free time after school as the school work is just too much,” said a pupil from Dominican Convent.
The new education framework for O-Level and A-Level says learners’ grades will be based on 40 percent theoretical examinations, 30 percent practical examinations and 30 percent continuous assessment. — @AuxiliaK