Mozambique: Mass exam failures – experts disagree | O País

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Mozambique: Mass exam failures – experts disagree | O País

8:48 CAT | 05 Mar 2021

File photo: O País

The National Organisation of Teachers [ONP] has no doubt that the “mass failures” are a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic. Education specialist António Cipriano however maintains that, this year was actually one of the best recently. The Education for All Movement, finally, thinks that the failures may be a consequence of the abolition of exams on second sitting.

Almost half of the students who wrote 10th and 12th grade exams in the city of Maputo failed. According to figures provided by Social Affairs Services, which oversees the education sector in the capital city, preliminary results point to 60.1% of Grade 10 pupils passing and 39.9% failing, with similar numbers for Grade 12.

Although there are as yet no definitive figures, teachers, specialists and civil society organisations working in the field of education already differ over interpretation.

“These failures are a consequence mainly of the Covid-19 pandemic,” says Teodoro Muidumbe, Secretary-General of the National Teachers’ Organisation (ONP).

“We were surprised by this disease, and were not trained in the new information and communication technologies that would allow us to teach classes to all grades.” As a consequence of this, Muidumbe says, “the students did not have time to prepare [for the exams].”

António Cipriano, a specialist in the field of education who currently serves as director of the Faculty of Education at Eduardo Mondlane University, has a different opinion, maintaining that the results are positive and even exceed the pedagogical performance recorded during the 2019 academic year.

“The worst Grade 10 results came in 2015 – around 42% [pass rate] and, for Grade 12, around 49%. In 2020, it seems that both the Grades 10 and 12 results stand at 74%, nationally, better than in 2019,” he says.

According to Cipriano, the explanation for the better results is that the students made an effort because they already knew that they would be taking the exams.

The Education for All Movement, on the other hand, agrees that the results are negative and that they were influenced by the pandemic. “In previous years, there were better results because the evaluation opportunities were greater,” with both first and second [exam] sittings, organization representative Abel das Neves says.

Das Neves further notes that “the final results on the levels of achievement in the exam grades are still to be released by the Ministry of Education and Human Development”.

By António Tiua

Source: O País