Striking a semblance of balance

This is a big question motivated by the compelling demands of the 21st century world order. Hitherto, schools are synonymous with examinations and it is inconceivable to think of the world of schools without examinations.

The life of a school effectively revolves around the examination system. The examination has established itself as a powerful influencer defining what a school can do and cannot do.

All teaching, especially in public schools, is directed and channelled towards equipping students with all the paraphernalia they need and should marshal in order to overcome the daily and monthly tests, quizzes and half yearly and end of year examination challenges. How a school fares in the final examinations can either glorify or lower the dignity of a school. This explains schools are in a rat race to reach the top. More often than not schools resort to rote learning to accomplish high standards.

This is how an examination inspires a school. For example, upon the release of student outcomes for junior certificate and senior secondary school examination hurdles, all schools are ranked ordered and allocated positions in the academic log. Just like in a football league, a school that manages to garner the highest points is placed at the summit of the academic log and while the least and struggling school is relegated to the bottom of the league. Sitting on top of the log brings in its train honour and accolades while the schools that have the indignity of languishing at the basement attract shame and unflattering remarks from all quarters.

There is no denying the important role that examinations play in the life of schools. Among other things examinations give schools and individual students reason to study hard, engage and stay focused. It is against this background that making the examination the epicentre of a school is not without foundation. Vying for a respectable position in the academic log is considered a noble and worthy pursuit. However, a complete devotion to examinations has its own limitations, it has been found. The examination centred instructional approaches deprive of students opportunities to hone skills required in the world of work, beyond the precincts of the classroom. In his study on declining academic achievement levels in secondary schools in Botswana, Professor Jaap Kuiper found out that classroom practices are mainly teacher centred and that students have little or no room to develop skills that would facilitate a smooth transition into the labour market.

He observed that student activities in an English lesson are mostly limited to “answering standard questions and exercises, reading poems or other piece of writing.” It is one way traffic type of teaching where teachers ask questions about standard problems and students hardly get an opportunity to ask questions. This kind of instructional practice does not conform to the 21st century world, which demands team work, use of the Internet to research and provide solutions to problems among other things. Further Kuiper lamented that: “This is not a kind of teaching and learning that reflects higher-order cognitive activity. In fact, it shows that students are confronted with standard stuff to prepare them for examinations. Students seem to have little say in what happens, the teacher is in control and deals mainly with standard issues of the syllabus. There is little innovative activity, creativity, thinking and experimenting.” Teaching should aim at bridging the gap between qualifications and the labour market requirements. For example, English lessons should adopt the communicate approach where students are continuously engaged in robust debates, writing speeches, watching parliamentary debate, videos of responding to job advertisements, reading and writing news.

It is evidently clear that an examination-anchored school system may not succeed in providing education and training fit for the 21st century. It is a narrow approach which does not do any justice to the students. As a matter of urgency, there is a need to interrogate and overhaul present pedagogic practices in order to give skills development sufficient attention. One of the major stumbling blocks to this approach is of course the narrow focus on examinations. However, it is noted with a sigh of relief, the proposal to abolish examinations at the foundation level of the system. This is what thinking outside the box is all about.

The cancelation of examinations at this level, if carried through, will herald a new dawn in the education system. This will usher a paradigm shift towards skills development .Teaching will focus on growing a repertoire of skills through a variety of teaching skills, which include undertaking educational excursions, promoting group and independent research. Change for a good cause requires an audacious spirit, which does not harbour any fears. Twenty-first century world demands the courage to overhaul the education system to cater for emerging challenges. At junior and senior secondary schools, there is an urgent need to create a balance between theory examinations and practical examinations. More money should be skewed in favour of vocational-oriented departments in order to lend more support to the skills development agenda. In so far as resourcing is concerned, government should not be left to run the show singlehandedly. The business community continues to demonstrate the zeal and enthusiasm to support teaching and learning. In addition, there is a mushrooming of Alumni associations which are mobilising resources to support schools. Even in the worst of times, Batswana demonstrated through the “one man one beast that they can make sacrifices for a greater good. So it is no longer necessary for government to shoulder alone the burden of resourcing schools. Also school timetables should be redrawn to give students sufficient air to express themselves fully in vocational-oriented subjects while also making efforts to deploy students to real work situations so that they could get a feel of the demands and expectations of life outside school.

Nonetheless, the shift towards a skilled development programme is not going to be easy. There is going to be some degree of resistance. First there could be issues of negative perception towards vocational training and education. There are people who still perceive vocational training to be less prestigious and less rewarding. And efforts should be made to overcome negativity towards the new dispensation. Also the teachers, the professional competencies of the teachers should be enhanced in order to make the transition to a practical skills-oriented approach more seamless. Kuiper noted that, “the problem lies mostly in the fact that teachers have received their teacher-education from institutions where, and in a period when, transmitting content knowledge was the main – and mostly indeed the only focus for teaching. As a consequence, teachers look at curriculum documents to analyse the subject-content represented in them, and plan to teach the content they are familiar with - often leaving out or only partly dealing with such content that is perceived as unfamiliar or ‘difficult.”