Headmaster queries two sets of results

VIVIAN NTHWESANE
Correspondent | Friday March 19, 2010 00:00

According to the school head, Morris Magama, initial results posted on the internet reflected a 100 percent fail rate for students who had sat for Home Economics, as they were all awarded a grade E for that subject.

'I was very surprised to see a 100 percent fail and I knew there must have been a mistake. I spent sleepless nights, and called Botswana Examination Council office which also admitted that there must have been some kind of a mistake,' he said.

Magama said while BEC had requested that they should put their concerns in writing, they were surprised to find another posting of a second set of results on the internet.

'Before we could even write a letter to BEC like they said we should, the new results were already posted on the internet, out of 39 students who were given grade E only five remained with that grade as for the others, their grades changed to As, Bs, Cs and D's,' he said.

Magama said such confusion reflected badly on the school and revealed that many parents are now discouraging their children from taking up Home Economics as one of their subjects.

'We had an overall pass rate of 71 percent before the results changed and now our overall pass rate is 80.5 percent with the new results,' he said. He added, 'What worries me most is that these changes are only known by us and the BEC, people do not know about it and they haven't apologised to us for what they did,' said Magama.

He said he is not even sure that the papers were remarked. Magama cited another incident concerning results. 'One student whose results came out in 2008 was given an overall grade of a B, she had a belief that her papers were not well marked. Her papers were remarked and she ended up with an overall grade of an A,' he said.

He said it is ironic that if the opposite had happened and all students passed with A's he could have been investigated but because it concerned failing, no one was bothering to explain what had happened.

When contacted for comment, Botswana Examination Council (BEC) public relations officer, Charles Keikotlhae admitted that the council had erred in the Radikolo examination results.

'It is true that Radikolo JSS received two successive examination results for their 2009 Junior Certificate candidates between 23 and 24 December, 2009, however normal procedure was followed. The results were released on the 23 and these were dispatched to the Regional Education Office and through the Web site,' he explained.

He said on the morning of the 24 the school registered a query on their Home Economics (HE) results with BEC and by 10.30am of the same day the issue had been resolved and attempts were made to communicate with the school by telephone but there was no response.  He said the corrected results were posted on the web and a letter was faxed to the school explaining the reasons for the low performance in HE.

'The same letter was posted to the school through registered mail on the 28 of December, enclosed in the letter was the corrected statement of results for candidates. BEC did not hear from the school again and assumed that they had received the letter together with the corrected statement of results for distribution to the candidates,' he said.

Keikotlhae said following a newspaper article, BEC contacted the school head who said that they only received the two versions of the results on the morning of the January 25, 2010, and that there was no letter enclosed. BEC then sent an officer to the school with a new print-out of results and found both versions of the results including the letter that was written on the 24 of December 2009.

'The overall results for Radikolo JSS candidates improved by 2.2%. Merit and A grades did not change, B grade changed from 47-51%, C from 99-100% and D from 42-37%. Only five candidate's results improved,' he said.

The PRO said while it is not desirable to release results with errors, such things do occur hence the provision in the examination regulations to give candidates and centres a grace period of six weeks from the date of the release of results to make any queries.