EXTERNAL EXAMS START IN FEB, TIMETABLES OUT

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.

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