What led to bad JCE performance?
Baboki Kayawe | Friday January 24, 2014 15:56
Once again, with the release of the worst ever results of the Junior Certificate of Education (JCE), Batswana are once again scratching their heads, wondering why?
As that question reels on, a rainbow of factors has formed in the local skies as stakeholders attempt to unpack the bad grades that the Botswana Examinations Council (BEC) released on Wednesday afternoon. Breaking the unprecedented poor performance registered in the 2012 JCE, fingers are being pointed all over, the grading system, student teacher ratio, lack of parental involvement in education, teachers condition of service with many insisting that 2011 public sector strike lives to haunt our education system.
Social media sites were abuzz yesterday as the nation cried the beloved country, and opinions were vast and divided. A young professional, Innocent Lesole posits that sending teachers for further studies in numbers without prior arrangements to have contract teacher standing in for those at school had a role in the dismal results. At the period (2012), some schools had go for periods without teacher substitutes and those available had to double their workload.
“Lately, the classrooms have been filled with unqualified teachers who fail to instil educational discipline on learners. These temporary teachers can’t teach and it contributes to learners losing interest in education,” he says.
In addition, he says among today’s generation of teachers, many see the profession as employment than a national development service whose intention is to empower and enlighten the nation. He is quick to appreciate that times have changed, and that passion ought to be fanned with appetising remuneration. Lesole adds that the current brawls between government and educators over conditions of service are demoralising.
“Government has neglected teachers with regards to conditions of service, their salaries are low and lack of accommodation among others are disturbing,” he says.
The popularity and easy access to social media in Lesole’s eyes is fighting for attention and time with academic work. He suggests that laws be enacted to address under age participation in such networks. Though they originate from elsewhere and challenges in regulations here very imminent, he says at least local telecommunications and mobile phone companies that provide unlimited free access to such need to be controlled.
“The companies should have age restrictions and a timed access as opposed to the current practice where they are accessed whenever,” he says, adding that sites such as Facebook have been regarded as the enemy of educational development even in the Western world.
A junior secondary school teacher who declined to be named said the current grading system has a serious bearing on the decline of the results. In order for a student to get merit they have to obtain straight A’s in all the core subjects that is Setswana, English, Mathematics and Science.
Furthermore, he says a learner has to be awarded A in at least one optional subjects, and two A’s in the remaining subjects to be a merit student. That the current grading put emphasis on the point system as opposed to grades meaning that the overall grades for all subjects studied at JC are a none consideration.
“The probability for that is very slim,” says the teacher.
Efforts are made however to address teachers’ conditions of service. For instance, the mass exodus of teachers for refresher courses, though a good move in the long run, may have been executed in a manner that left a gap in the school system. Last year, teachers’ pay structure was aligned with the rest of the civil service, though implementation is facing challenges. Perhaps it explains why Botswana Sectors of Educators’ Trade Union’s (BOSETU) spokesperson, Solomon Batsietswe does not mention teachers’ welfare as a contributor to the horrifying results.
“Disheartening,” says Batsietswe about the results. He says top in the list of all contributory factors is the acute shortage of textbooks that national school, including junior schools are starring in the eye. A lot of schools and subjects suffered the shortage, which disabled individual students to have copies, or even have extended revision hours outside the classroom as recommended learning material were shared.
“There is too much compromise when books are shared, and this is a huge factor perhaps the major one,” Batsietswe says.
Classrooms are overflowing beyond the recommended Revised National Policy on Education (1994) ratio of 35:1, and are containing huge numbers such as 44/45 or even 54 as which limits teachers’ contact time with individual learners.
“The larger the class the more difficult it becomes for a teacher to satisfy individual needs,” says Batsietswe.
The sordid state of infrastructure in schools, resource limitations and general lack of facilities have a hand in this mess, according to Batsietswe. He says in some schools congestion coupled with lack of classrooms has sent learners under trees where diversified learning aid such as demonstrations through ICTs is impossible.
“The grading system is a suspect as well, we are not very sure that it is not a contributory factor because last year the same mix up happened. BEC has to be clear and engage all the stakeholders especially teachers need to be taken on because the results are a litmus test for their work,” he says.
Lastly, subsequent to the public sector strike relations have soured between school heads and staff, and have lately turned schools into war-zones. Occasionally, Batsietswe says, teachers are reprimanded and called for disciplinary hearing for small issues. Together with the tedious transfer process, which has seen many teacher stay in rural areas for decades while their counterpart in urban and semi-urban areas are progressing in terms of academic upgrading for instance, has dampened teachers morale.
Dr Phillip Bulawa, a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Education at the University of Botswana (UB), agrees that textbook shortage and overpopulation of classrooms are contributory factors. In addition, he says the education minister Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi is misplaced. While he describes her as intelligent, he says she has failed to address pertinent issues in education.
Failing to resolve the ever-souring teacher ministry relationship, which has been characterised by court cases according to Bulawa, is evident that the minister is not the relevant person to manage this ministry.
Bulawa says the minister was right in the previous portfolios she has held but education has proven too demanding for someone who is “always talking but quiet on pertinent issues. The minister is wrongly placed, she does not belong to the education ministry.”
He reasons that the deteriorating results are a manifestation of prolonging issues in education, while authorities opt to engage in half-meal solutions. He says issues need to be approached as a package, wholesomely as opposed to treating them individually.
Baluwa says research indicates that one has failed even before they start with a student teacher ration of 30, and in our context, the student population has been way above that for a long time. He blames automatic progression as well for this catastrophe because the lot that did badly at form three are those who transited to junior secondary without having mastered the elementary content.
The scholar says parents are often blamed for not being involved in education yet they are not educated on what their responsibilities are, as compared to private schools where parents are taken on board and their duties and responsibilities communicated to them.
“There is a need to take them on board in order for them to understand the essence of education and their involvement in it,” says Bulawa.
Sources close to developments at the education ministry say an assessment and analysis meeting was held among the top management and regional directors with the objective of mapping a way forward to improve results. By yesterday afternoon, the ministry had not commended on the dismal results.
A total of 38,944 candidates compared to 38,497 in 2012 wrote the 2013 examination showing an increase of 1.2 percent. Out of the 38,944 candidates there were 19,490 male candidates and 19,454 female candidates. In overall, 35.3 percent candidates obtained Grade C or better in comparison to 41.0 percent in 2012.