Mozambique: Prosecutors must defend legality
Mozambique: No changes in assessment this year, says Education Ministry
7:31 CAT | 22 May 2018
The new regulations, leaked on Thursday, would mean that all students, regardless of how good their marks were during the year, would have to sit the exams. The reaction from students was immediate and hostile. They told reporters it was unfair to change the system half way through the school year. File photo: Notícias
The Mozambican Education Ministry has claimed that the changes to the school assessment system, which led to angry protests by secondary school students on Friday, are no more than a proposal, and will not take immediate effect.
The change that most alarmed students, was that the scheme under which students (particularly in 10th and 12th grades) could be excused from taking end of year exams, if their work during the year was good enough, would be scrapped.
Under the existing regulations, dating from 2015, those students whose assessments during the year reached an average of 70 per cent would be dispensed from the requirement of sitting final exams.
The new regulations, leaked on Thursday, would mean that all students, regardless of how good their marks were during the year, would have to sit the exams. The reaction from students was immediate and hostile. They told reporters it was unfair to change the system half way through the school year.
A large number of students demonstrated outside the Education Ministry’s Maputo headquarters on Friday morning. Ministry staff agreed to discuss the matter, and held a meeting with the students at a nearby Secondary School. Students interpreted the results as a complete victory, since the Ministry officials said the new regulations would only take effect next year.
The Ministry called a press conference later on Friday, insisting that there had never been any intention to change the assessment system for the current academic year. But if this were the case, the Ministry could have said so on Thursday, or even on Friday morning when the students began their protest. The delay in clarifying matters certainly gave the impression that the students’ demonstration had forced the Ministry to retreat.
The Ministry’s General Inspector, Abel Assis, said that the proposed changes are still undergoing “internal socialisation” within the institution”, He called for calm and the normal functioning of schools.
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The new assessment regulations, he said, were intended to bring Mozambique into line with educational practices elsewhere in the region and the world, since Mozambique is one of the few countries which still excuses students from final exams on the basis of good marks achieved in continual assessment over the year.
“The Ministry believes that, for educational reasons, there is not much justification for dispensing pupils from the exams. They shouldn’t be afraid of exams”, said Assis. On the contrary, pupils should “love exams”, since they were an opportunity to demonstrate their mastery over the subject.
As for claims that the Ministry was abolishing the second sitting of final exams, whereby pupils who fail the first sitting have a second chance, Assis said this was not true, but the Ministry was “improving access to the second sitting”.
But in any case, he said, none of these changes would take place in the 2018 academic year.
Source: AIM
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