The Sunday Mail
>> Girls outshine boys
>> Rural high schools dominate
>> Private schools a letdown
The Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (Zimsec) A-level results released a fortnight ago have revealed quite a number of interesting scenarios regarding the country’s education sector.
For years, several unscientific methods and assumptions have been deduced soon after the release of the results.
However, the results that were released recently go a long a way in dispelling some of the misconceptions.
Of interest from the results were the shifting tides, such as the emergence of the rural high school as an academic powerhouse as much as the failure of some of the country’s expensive schools to make it into the top 100.
However, the foremost noticeable is the shifting of the stereotype that girls are inferior to boys when it comes to academic achievement.
In last year’s exams, girls scored a 74 percent pass rate compared to boys who recorded 68 percent, although fewer girls wrote two or more subjects.
Again, that was the same scenario in the A-level results of 2012, where figures showed that the pass rate for females was 83,78 percent compared to 80,83 percent for males. The total number of school candidates who sat for the November 2014 examination was 30 614 of whom 25 291 obtained a grade E or better in two or more subjects.
The girls’ performance has received wide acclaim from stakeholders in the education sector, who view it as a major step in influencing an ideological shift from the widely held notion of patriarchal invincibility both in the academic and professional spheres.
“The results make a mockery of the widely held cultural sentiment that women are not capable of doing what men can do,” said sociologist Mr Peter Rwafa.
He argued that academic achievement in the Zimbabwean context was mostly determined by socio, economic and political factors.
“There are a number of determinants in what is termed as the gender-gap inequality in school level academic achievement,” he said.
Mr Rwafa said the obtaining academic achievement is currently constructed with a bias towards such things as class, ethnicity and gender.
“Results over the years have indicated patriarchal dominance and invincibility, both academically and in the workplace, so the recent results will go a long way in dispelling that widely held mindset,” he said.
Zimsec director Mr Esau Nhandara said: “It was pleasing to note that females performed better than males in last year’s exams, although the number of the former who wrote two or more subjects for both public school and private candidates was lesser than the latter.”
However, a Harare-based teacher who preferred anonymity, chose to differ and instead blamed rampant drug abuse among boys as the reason girls were now performing better than boys in schools.
“Most boys of the school-going age are now openly abusing drugs, alcohol and cough syrups which are easily accessible in the streets and are very much affordable,” she said.
She said most urban youths of school-going age have adopted what is now termed as the urban youth culture, which constitutes beer, prostitution and criminal activities.
Another interesting aspect from the results is the emergence of the rural schools as a force to reckon with.
Only one school from Harare, Mufakose High One, with a pass rate of 98,65 from 148 students, features in the Top 50, with most of the schools in the Top 50 based in the rural parts of the country.
Manicaland and Masvingo province dominate the Top 10 with three schools apiece, and interestingly, all the three schools from Masvingo, Zaka High (8), Chinorumba Secondary (9) and St Antony’s (3) are located in rural Zaka, which lies 86 kilometres to the south-east of the provincial capital of Masvingo.
Educationist Mr Charles Dauramanzi commended the “busy man at work” ethic often exhibited at most rural schools, as the recipe which has resulted in the success of the schools.
“Most boarding schools are situated in rural areas, and the students there are always enmeshed in a school environment all the time,” he said.
Mr Dauramanzi said this instils higher levels of discipline, which also enhances academic performance.
Ironically, most of the schools that have perennially become permanent features in both the O- and A-Level Top 10 are mission boarding schools, where high levels of discipline are a prerequisite.
“Children in urban set-ups shift between the school environment and the street set-up which exposes them to behaviour which runs parallel with academic excelling,” he said.
Another educationist, Mr Victor Mapfumo, argued that the emergence of the rural school as a force to reckon with had something to do with the “priorities” between the rural and urban teacher.
“Urban teachers often indulge in other income-generating activities to mitigate against a high cost of living which they endure, so most of their priorities are divided between hustling to eke a living and commitment towards their work,” he said.
He said it was a different story with the rural teacher, whose life can be accommodated within the budgetary realm of the obtaining salary scale, hence they tend to direct more of their efforts towards their work.
“Rural schools were not affected by the scrapping of incentitivies, whereas teachers in urban set-up were, so generally, morale is low among the teaching staff in the urban areas,” he added.
He said as education campaigners, they were advocating for an increase in funding to curb such disparities.
A further analysis of the examinations also indicated that candidates from cheaper schools performed better than those from expensive school (which are mostly private schools). The analysis also further showed that a host of the most expensive schools in the country failed to make it into the top 100.
A former headmaster, Mr Evans Kariwo, attributed this to different recruitment methods used by public schools, private schools and colleges, where public schools insist on results.
“Whereas public schools opt for the best when selecting students for the different levels of education, private schools’ recruitment is largely profit-driven,” he said.
The former headmaster said private schools and colleges were not choosy, as they recruit on the “who has the money get a vacancy” or “bambazonke” basis, hence their results tend not to be very impressive.
On the issue of expensive schools failing to make it into the Top 100, Mr Kariwo said their curriculum was biased towards talent identification and not necessarily academic achievement per se.
“That is the reason they have developed infrastructure in various sporting disciplines and other extra-curriculum activities,” he said.
“The academic results do not necessarily matter, and their thrust is biased towards developing a student on what he or she is capable of achieving, whether sports, acting or singing”.
