Times Of Swaziland: EXTERNAL EXAMS START IN FEB, TIMETABLES OUT

EXTERNAL EXAMS START IN FEB, TIMETABLES OUT
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BY SITHEMBILE HLATSHWAYO on 04/01/2022 08:59:00


MBABANE – Despite some resistance from teachers and parents regarding the
writing of external examinations pupils, the Examination Council of Eswatini
(ECESWA) has issued timetables for the exams which begin early February.
According to the timetables issued by ECESWA, first to sit for the external
examinations will be the Junior Certificate (JC) pupils (Form III) who are due
to start on February 14, 2022 with siSwati Paper I and complete on March 7, 2022
where they would be writing Consumer Science Paper II. Eswatini Primary
Certificate examinations for Grade VII pupils are expected to begin on February
28, 2022 with Mathematics Paper I and Agriculture Paper I. They will finish on
March 10, 2022.
Lastly, Eswatini General Certificate of Secondary Education (EGCSE) for Form V
pupils will begin on March 7, 2022. Pupils will be writing Physical Science
Paper I in the morning session and Economics Paper I in the afternoon session.
The examinations will be completed on March 18, 2022. This was confirmed by
ECESWA Communications Officer Hlengiwe Ndlovu. Ndlovu stated that the timetables
were also available on their website (www.examscouncil.org.sz) and were shared
with school centres.
Meanwhile, some parents are not comfortable with their children sitting for the
external examinations. According to some parents who were interviewed, they
stated that learners were not prepared as they missed most on the lessons due to
effects of the political unrest in the country and the COVID-19 pandemic.
They mentioned that while online learning was another option used, it did not
work for a number of reasons including unaffordable data, while other pupils 
did not have gadgets.
The parents stated that there was also no way that pupils managed to exhaust the
syllabus, while another issue was that the same pupils who were expected to sit
for the external examinations were promoted to the next class as they did not
write final examinations because they did not learn.
Worst
“The pupils are not ready and this will be the worst results for the country.
The learners just need to restart.” Swaziland National Association of Teachers
(SNAT) Secretary General (SG) Sikelela Dlamini said schools were closed for a
prolonged period, even more than it had been anticipated. Dlamini said the
consequences of missing lessons would be dire for the learners in terms of
preparedness. He said the problem was that it would not be considered that
schools were closed for prolonged periods. “Examinations are set prior, about
two to three years before they can be written and the anticipation is that
learners would have covered the syllabus by then.” The SG stated that the
realities showed that pupils had not covered the syllabus and they were not sure
how ECESWA would deal with the situation regarding standardisation of the
results.