Pinda's exams probe team finds 'scapegoat'

  Government rushes to nullify National Form Four results

NECTA's Executive Secretary, Dr Joyce Ndalichako (Left) and Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda (Right)

Faced with criticism and pressure from Parliament, the general public as well as a section of education experts, the government yesterday announced ‘a scapegoat’ that it believes was behind the mass failure recorded during the National Form Four examination of 2012.

The scapegoat is the National Examinations Council of Tanzania (NECTA), the body that has supervised and managed all examinations in Tanzania for decades, which the committee formed by Prime Minister Mizengo Pinda established that it used a new grading system that caused mass failures.

To repair the damage, the government has yesterday nullified the National Form Four results for all students who sat for the examination. But judging the reality on some of the examination’s answer sheets displayed by NECTA to the media early this year on which, one student drew a cartoon showing Barcelona’s star player Lionel Messi dribbling the ball, there might be more than just the offending ‘grading system’ factor.

Announcing the government decision yesterday in Parliament Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office (Policy, Coordination and Parliamentary Affairs) William Lukuvi said the committee formed by the prime minister to investigate the reasons behind such massive failure learnt that NECTA used a new system called Fixed Grade Ranges (FGR) in grading students’ performance.

The government announcement came only four days after the inquiry committee led by Prof Sifuni Mchome tabled its preliminary report of findings to the cabinet in Dodoma. It was on April 29th last week that the committee met the cabinet in Dodoma to table its preliminary findings. Lukuvi said the new system used by NECTA to grade the Form IV results last year was different from the traditional system used in previous years called National Mean Difference ( NMD).

According to Lukuvi, the NMD also took on board the respective student’s average Continuous Assessment (CA) for each subject. Lukuvi gave no more details with regard to the new system (FGR) in grading students’ performance last year besides maintaining that such a system was not thoroughly researched and prepared before its application by NECTA.

Lukuvi said after the meeting with the committee the cabinet agreed unanimously that the 2012 Form IV results be nullified, aaccording to advice from the inquiry task force. The minister said the results would now be standardized so that the pass marks could tally with efforts that students used while studying. The cabinet also agreed that NECTA should suspend application of the new grading system (Fixed Grade Ranges) and should instead apply the old system in grading the 2012 Form results (National Mean Difference).

The traditional grading system, according to Lukuvi, should also be used in grading Form Six National Examination results. He called upon NECTA to involve educational stakeholders when making changes on the grading system.

“The decision by the cabinet is aimed at doing justice to parents, students and teachers who have spent time, effort and other resources to ensure they fulfilled their desired educational objectives,” Lukuvi said. However, he said a drastic increase in number of students and pupils in schools across the country had since overwhelmed the government’s ability to provide all educational requirements, affecting the quality of education and students’ performance.

Giving statistics, Lukuvi said from 1961 to 2001 the number of primary school pupils increased from 486,470 to 4,875,764; but for the period between 2001 and 2012 the number of primary school pupils increased from 4,875,764 to 8,247,472. Secondary school students also increased from 11,832 during independence (1961) to 289,699 in 2001 but the country experienced a drastic increase from 289,699 students in 2001 to 1,884,270 in 2012.

Lukuvi attributed such a drastic increase of pupils and students in schools to various educational programmes implemented by the government such as Primary Educational Development Programme (PEDP) and Secondary Educational Development Programme (SEDP). On February 18, this year the government announced the Form IV national examination results, indicating that over 60 per cent (240,000) of the 367,756 candidates who sat for the examination on October last year had completely failed. According to the breakdown provided, only 23, 52 students scored Divisions One to Three, while 103,327 candidates scored Division Four.

Though the committee has initially come up with such findings and recommendations, educational policy in the country needs to be reviewed. This will necessitate an overhaul of the education curriculum.

The committee cites other factors that contributed to poor performance as lack of proficiency in English language which is the medium of instruction, poor motivation to teachers, ill-training of teachers and lack of learning and teaching material.