IT’S NOW OFFICIAL: SPECIAL EXAM FOR OVER 2 500 GRADE VII FAILS

MBABANE – Despite that a new curriculum will roll-out from this year, the 2 716 Grade VII fails will repeat the grade and will not be promoted to the next class.

This was revealed by the Minister for Education and Training, Owen Nxumalo, in an interview with Eswatini News. The year 2024 served as the last year for the Outcome-Based Education (OBE) curriculum. OBE is basically an educational philosophy that focuses on the desired outcomes or results of the learning process, rather than just the delivery of content or the completion of courses.

From this year, the group of learners in Grade VII will be under the Competency-Based Education (CBE) curriculum. The CBE is a continuous assessment syllabus. Children under the CBE have projects and course-work that they started in Grade V, which will also be used to grade their final examination marks in Grade VII.

Failed

The introduction of the CBE curriculum means the phasing out of the OBE curriculum. In 2023, schools were advised that no learner should repeat Grade VI since the plan is to phase out the OBE curriculum in primary school and learners under the stream were expected to proceed to Grade VII, even if they failed.As a result, an alarming 2 716 learners failed the Eswatini Primary Certificate (EPC) examinations in the recently released results. 

  “Those learners will repeat. There is no way we can promote them to the next grade because no school will admit failures. A circular will be released with the detailed strategies on how it will be undertaken. The fails will be treated in a special case and we have already communicated with the Exams Council for a special examination for these learners. They will repeat what they did not do well and then proceed to the next class,” Nxumalo said.  
Nxumalo pleaded with the schools, where these learners failed to welcome learners back to class. He mentioned that it is just two subjects in the CBE curriculum that the failures are not familiar with and, therefore, there will be a concessionary for this group.   

Undertaken

The main reason for the many fails as cited by Sitsatsaweni Primary School teachers, is because most of the learners were wheel barrowed to Grade VII at the instruction of the ministry of Education and Training as new curriculum was being undertaken by the incoming class. Sitsatsaweni Primary recorded an alarming 109 fails from 164 candidates. In the recently-released Eswatini Primary Certificate (EPC) results, the school had no Merit and First Class passes, and only showed 22 Second Class passes, while 33 learners achieved Third Class passes.  

In a circular seen by Eswatini News and signed by the Director Education Dr Tholokele Mngometulu on behalf of Acting Principal Secretary Nanikie Mnisi, all head teachers are directed to allow learners who did not pass the 2024 Grade VII examination to repeat the grade level. “These learners should receive support through enrichment and remediation activities,” the circular read in part. It continues that the in-service Education and Training Unit, in collaboration with Subject Panels, Regional Inspectors and Curriculum Designers must conduct regional infusion workshops to orient all Grade VII teachers on the CBE curriculum.

“All primary schools are obligated to ensure that their teachers attend all workshops to facilitate their understanding of the new Competency-Based Education syllabus and the effective use of instructional materials,” it reads. It adds that all learners, who have been enrolled in the CBE curriculum since 2019, will be assessed according to the dictates of this new curriculum.

Syllabus

“The assessment of Grade VII repeaters will be adjusted to reflect a concessionary approach, with the evaluation emphasising the subjects covered by learners in their previous syllabus,” the circular read. In the past five years, there has been an upward trend in the number of failures in Grade VII from just 1 638 in 2020 to 2 295 in 2023 and the latest 2 716 failures in the 2024 class. The alarming 2 716 failures were announced by the Minister for Education and Training, Owen Nxumalo, when delivering the Eswatini Primary Certificate (EPC) examination results over a week ago in a press conference, conveyed at the ministry’s boardroom.

The 2024 EPC results were the worst in the previous five years with a pass rate of 90.75 per cent. Meanwhile, 29 635 candidates sat the EPC examination with 1 043 candidates attaining Merits. The number of First Class passes was 3 547, Second Class passes 15 085 and Third Class passes was 7 088.

Nxumalo mentioned in his press conference that 2024 served as the second year of normalised school calendar post the novel COVID-19 and the political unrest, which were being felt in the learning setting. According to Nxumalo, the EPC results, along those of the Junior Certificate (JC), experienced severe drawbacks in their earlier learning years.

Dominated

Worth mentioning is that rural schools dominated the list of schools who attained a 100 per cent pass rate. Out of the 260 schools that recorded a 100 per cent pass rate, most are from rural areas. They include Nginamadvolo Primary, Ekufikeni Primary, Luhhumaneni Primary, Ebulandzeni Primary, Nkonjaneni Primary, Hlabazonke Primary, Elubhaceni Primary, Mvembili Primary, Mgululu Primary and Mbava Primary schools.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: