Multiple pathways key to learners’ success - academic
Pini Bothoko | Monday February 7, 2022 06:00
Bulawa said multiple pathways are important elements of personalised learning environments because they create equal rigorous academic paths for learners to pursue their interests.
He added that it (multiple pathways) would also help learners to gain the real world skills and experiences they need in order to be successful after completing their studies. “There are a number of factors that could lead to the low pass rate but learners should be allowed to choose and study subjects that they are good at as early as at junior level. Those who do extremely well academically should focus on it while those whose strength is vocational should focus on such subjects as early as possible,” Bulawa said.
He further stated that multiple pathways would also allow students to customise their education to meet their unique needs and circumstances and gain real world knowledge, skills and experiences. Bulawa said for years, the national JCE results have been stagnant something that calls for immediate attention. He said teachers should be able to identify learners’ strengths and capabilities at primary level, track them to junior level and help them pursue subjects of their interests. “This is what countries like Zimbabwe have been doing and have better quality education compared to us.
The problem is we complain of poor results following the release of the results then we keep quiet without having any plan towards their improvement. The majority of students who wrote JC did not pass the Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE),” he said.
Bulawa added that more than 6,000 learners have obtained grade E and they will soon be roaming the streets not proceeding anywhere whilst some of them had strengths in vocational subjects.
Furthermore, he argued that the government should also allow learners with poor results to repeat Standard 7 because they proceed to junior level with poor results and make the situation worse.
He stated that teachers find themselves having to handle students of different learning abilities many of whom went to secondary without having mastered primary school level skills.
The overall performance of the 2021 JC candidates indicate a slight decrease of 0.5% from the overall performance the previous year. The summary report has revealed that 83.7% of candidates obtained Grades E or better being pass grades compared to 84.2% in 2020. The proportion of candidates obtaining Grades C or better is at 35.3% compared to 35.8% in 2020 representing a slight decline of 0.5% depicting a relatively similar cohort to that of the previous year. “About 6,112 candidates (13.22%) obtained Grade E as compared to 5,947 (13.55%) in 2020 while 15,367 candidates obtained Grade D as compared 14,924 in 2020. Candidates who obtained Grade C are 10,322 (22.33%) as compared to 9,865 in 2020 while 4,176 candidates obtained Grade B (9.03%) as compared to 4,187 (9.54%) in 2020.
Candidates who obtained Grade A are 543 (1.1%) as compared to the 485 (1.11%) candidates in 2020,” reads the summary. Moreover, an outstanding performance has been noted where 13 candidates obtained merit as compared to 11 in 2020 being the highest number recorded since 2010. Female candidates again called the shots when they performed better than the male candidates in all core subjects.