The blame-game jumble in education
Baboki Kayawe | Friday March 6, 2015 14:44
The Stats
In 2012, 31,665 candidates sat for the Botswana General Certificate of Secondary Examinations (BGCSE) examinations. This was a 10 percent increase from the previous year when 29.2 percent of the grades were C or better.
In 2013, 34,069 candidates sat for the exam, - eight percent up from the previous year when 27.9 percent of the total grades were rated C or better.
In the 2014 exams, whose results were released recently, there were 37, 384 candidates. This was 10 percent higher than the previous year when 25.8 percent were graded C or better.
According to the authorities, the number of candidates have been boosted by the introduction of the Back-to-School programme and universal access to education policy, which states that each child should be guaranteed a minimum of 10 years’ education.
The policy is enshrined in the 1994 Revised National Policy on Education whose other goal of increased access to senior secondary education beyond 50 percent, has pushed up numbers at BGCSE level.
Trend analysis of Botswana Examinations Council (BEC) figures indicates that pass rates have been falling across the syllabi, with subjects such as Setswana, Science, Human and Social Biology, Geography, Commerce, Accounting and Business Studies among the worst affected.
The 1994 Revised National
Policy on Education (RNPE)
The game-changing policy, born from the Kedikilwe Commission on Education, is the umbrella document for the universal access policy, the secondary school enrolment target and a host of other initiatives including the localisation of the examination process.
The RNPE provided “a comprehensive strategy for education and training that would serve the human resource development needs of Botswana into the 21st century”. It was intended to solve a number of key challenges including the lack of “overall policy of the tertiary education sector” and “the lack of policies, co-ordination, and unified administration in tertiary education”.
As pass rates have plummeted, however, criticism of some of the RNPE’s founding policies have grown louder.
Some authorities and analysts believe greater enrolment has outstripped school and classroom construction, particularly at secondary and tertiary level, squeezing the available human and infrastructural resources.
“Having more of our population accessing 10 year basic education may be compromising quality in the sense that schools end up going beyond the standard student teacher ratio,” said Education Permanent Secretary, Richard Matlhare, in a media brief this week.
Elaborating on the results of a Government-sanctioned study into declining pass rates, Matlhare said the teacher/student ratio had crept up to 1:60 in some schools as Government pursues the universal access policy.
In the process, facilities such as science laboratories end up being used as base-rooms while their core purpose is forfeited, the PS explained.
“This then compromises the teaching and learning of science, and the entire curriculum delivery,” he said.
Matlhare said more infrastructure is needed to accommodate the growth of enrolment through the tiers of education.
The universal access approach was also behind the introduction of the Back-to-School programme three years ago, which swelled enrolment and exam candidate numbers. It, however also, contributed to lower pass rates.
The Back-to-School students sat for BGCSE for the first time in 2014. Out of the total 37, 384 candidates in the exam, 6,988 were from the programme. Only 5.73 percent in the programme were rated C and above, compared to the national average of 25.8 percent.
The performance has led some policy makers in the education sector to question the wisdom of the programme, given the costs involved.
“The Back-to-School candidates represent school drop-outs looking for a second chance, but in many cases, these learners are either less disciplined than formal students or they are the victims of a lack of proper processes to re-absorb them.
“Some dropped out due to violence and gangsterism and there is a need to rehabilitate them before reintegrating them into formal education,” said an education official.
Localisation
of exams and
change of grading system
The RNPE proposed and subsequently adopted the very noble idea of localising exams such as the BGCSE, which capacitated local assessments and enabled development of skills in this field.
The introduction of BGCSE has seen a major reform of syllabi, with the introduction of individual research projects such Art and Design, Design and Technology, Home Economics and Business Studies.
With the change of the examination system, authorities quickly realised that the grading scheme would have to change as well. In the past, a Norm Referenced Scheme was used where the highest mark in a given subject was awarded the highest grade.
All the other candidates in that subject would be graded against the highest mark.
The new Standard Based Grading System is a more accurate measurement of individual candidates’ performances. This week, BEC executive secretary, Brian Mokopakgosi, explained the strengths of the Standard Based Grading System, which was introduced at Junior Certificate exam level in 2012.
According to Mokopakgosi, the new grading scheme assesses the application and understanding of concepts against the objectives of the syllabi. Each student is graded individually, as opposed to the Norm Referenced days.
“It also calls for the demonstration of what each candidate knows, understands and can do. It is important then that we value the student’s own experiences,” he said.
The change of the grading scheme, according to some, has resulted in the same achievements previously ranked high are now classified as mediocre. The candidates have not become dumber; the goal-posts have been shifted, critics say.
The other side of the argument is that the new grading system exposed the poor performance of students in previous years and highlighted the need for interventions.
“The results could actually be an indication that the true scope of delivery at schools has been hiding behind a grading system that always fooled everyone into thinking that our students are doing well,” wrote Joe-Brown Tlhaselo in the Botswana Guardian after the 2012 JC results were released. “At least now the nation has an appreciation of where we really are, and that lie is no more.”
However, unions argue that the BEC’s rollout of the new grading scheme was to blame for the poor results. The scheme, they say, was introduced at national exams level in 2012, but only incorporated in school based assessment in 2013.
Teachers, they say, would not have been drilled to execute the syllabi in accordance with the new scheme.
Automatic regression or progression?
Working in tandem with the universal access to education policy has been automatic progression, which has ensured that learners pass seamlessly through the 10 years of education offered under the universal policy. In other words, each learner is guaranteed 10 years of education regardless of performance at critical levels such as Standard 7.
In recent years, when JC results have been particularly poor, education authorities have given poor performers a waiver into senior secondary.
In fact, the class of 2014 responsible for the recent poor results was the beneficiary of such action when the Education Ministry automatically transitioned some of the learners in 2013, despite dismal performances at JC.
At the time, commentators said the decision was based on unprecedented poor JC results and the need for higher secondary enrolment as espoused under the RNPE.
They argued that this cohort of students found life tough in the senior secondary classroom, as they were not academically mature to transition to the BGCSE exam room, hence the decline in the 2014 exams.
“Moreover, if there was any remediation efforts to guide these learners, it was not enough,” one commentator said.
Legislators recently demonstrated that they were equally concerned about automatic progression, with Mogoditshane MP, Sedirwa Kgoroba successfully pushing a motion to prohibit the policy.
Automatic progression has, thus, been replaced with assessed progression, as envisaged by the RNPE.
Kgoroba argued that automatic progression promoted laziness among learners as they did not work hard knowing that they would “easily sweep through to another level” even if they failed. “Things were not easy during our times. Things were not that easy as we struggled and studied hard to pass to other levels,” he said in Parliament.
“The requirement to pass to another level was restricted to 50 percent pass and if you didn’t obtain that, you were not allowed to go forward.
“That is why we studied hard because if you failed, you knew very well that the younger ones would catch you on the way and make fun of you,” he said.
Teachers’ conditions of service
Teachers’ unions have long pointed out that declining pass rates cannot be extricated from the conditions of service public sector teachers operate under. Analysts point to the Public Service Act which came into effect in 2010 and forced teachers to work eight-hour days like the rest of the public service.
Teachers say these changes meant that remedial lessons and extra-curricular activities could not be executed and were consequently abandoned or minimised, at the expense of education standards.
The issue of payment of overtime, where teachers and their school heads agree on longer hours for extra-curricular activities, is still a sore point for unionists who say the employer is reluctant to pay up.
Teachers also complain of low remuneration, poor accommodation and service issues such as progression. According to Matlhare, the study into poor exam results found that teachers’ salaries, progression, transfers and housing and school management from the bottom of the pyramid were also critical for the realisation of quality.
Unionists say Government has neglected the in-service training of teachers and educators are up-skilled through workshops and seminars, as opposed to sponsoring them for further studies.
“In yesteryears, teachers used to be upskilled, re-tooled and sharpened by the department of in-service which has since collapsed,” the Botswana Sectors of Educators Trade Union (BOSETU) secretary general, Tobokani Rari says.
“This was done to meet the demands of the ever challenging and changing teaching methodologies, strategies and the changing syllabus content.”
Unionists believe the change of the grading schemes would have been more fruitful had teachers received in-service training to bring them up to speed.
In this week’s media brief, Matlhare said while teachers were generally well trained, there are still questions around their capacity to deliver quality education. “Have we capacitated them enough to deliver on the learning that would capacitate the child?” he asked rhetorically.
“Is the curriculum adequately loaded or it is over loaded especially looking at the number of subjects it entails?”
Additionally, the 2011 ‘Mother of All Strikes’ reportedly soured relations between teachers and the school heads, leading to a situation where the learning experience is equally tainted.
“School heads have now turned into corporate administrators of education who spend time disciplining teachers and managing conflicts arising from factionalism in schools as opposed to managing learning and teaching,” said one teacher.
Are students blameless?
Besides the rampant ill-discipline and indifference in certain schools, the Back-to-School learners have especially been singled out for being difficult to teach. Teachers say many of the former dropouts are un-rehabilitated and make classrooms hard to manage.
The Pastoral Policy, launched in 2008, has reportedly managed to rein in errant behaviour.
The policy is intended to “empower and equip the youth with skills that promote accountability, responsibility and patriotism”. In practice, the policy was designed to curb acts of indiscipline such as vandalism, truancy, and substance, while boosting academic performance and restraining moral decadence.
“The policy is still being implemented and its impact may not be visible in learners’ academic performances,” said Education deputy permanent secretary, Simon Coles this week.
“However, it has borne results.”
In the midst of all the competing factors, the fact remains that the publication of BGCSE results continues to be a period of national mourning.
The time has passed for stakeholders to find the missing puzzle in the education sector.