Educationists call for more funding towards education

ZIMBABWEANS have expressed mixed feelings over the 2011 public examination pass rate announced by Zimsec, with educationists calling for more funding towards education. They said Government should provide more funding to rural schools if the pass rate was to improve.

Urban schools also performed poorly in a year that was - for the second time - dominated by Manicaland and Mashonaland East schools.

Of the 10 Advanced Level toppers, Mashonaland East contributed four schools, Manicaland three with the Midlands and Masvingo contributing one each. Most of the schools that did well were mission and boarding schools.

St Faith's High School had the best results, followed by Shungu in the Midlands and Marist Nyanga respectively. For 'O' levels, Marist Nyanga was the best placed school, followed by St Dominics Chishawasha and ZRP High Schools respectively.

Educationist, Mr Wellington Koke of Direct Contact School, yesterday said schools that recorded high pass rates contributed a small fraction of the number of schools in the country.

Government, he said, still had "a journey" to travel to raise the national pass rate.

"Government still has quite a lot to offer. The average percent pass rate simply shows that something is lacking in the country's education system, which is funding," he said.

He said none of the schools that passed was a typical remedial school.

"The schools that passed do not enrol under performers. Average and under performing students should be turned around through remedial teaching and that is how we can boost the percentage pass rate. Its useless to have same schools performing better every year while others continue to go down the drain."

Most rural schools, said Mr Koke, would never develop because they lacked adequate resources.

"Resource allocation is not 50-50 when you compare them with boarding schools. Rural ones are manned by unqualified personnel and this explains why a lot needs to be done."

Veteran educationist Dr Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said even schools that were taking best students in their intakes were failing to produce good results. He said most schools were no longer taking grade seven results seriously.

"Many schools take the best but end up killing pupils. Entrance tests have destroyed the country's education system. Undeserving pupils get places at those highly placed schools and the end result would be disastrous. Schools, when enrolling should not disregard the importance of Grade Seven results because they are important," he said.

Dr Ndlovu added: "The education sector needs to be supported not the peanuts they are currently getting. These results are a wake up call to Government because education is key to the development of any nation."

Mr Brains Muchemwa, an economist, said from an economic perspective, poor remuneration also contributed a lot to bad performance by most schools.

"The share of education spending in the public budget as a percentage of GDP at around 5.5 percent in Zimbabwe is high compared to global standards and therefore the resource allocation framework towards education Zimbabwe is commendable," he said.

"The unfortunate aspect is the poor remuneration across the whole civil service that tends to equally demoralise teachers and therefore it becomes difficult to expect good pass rates under these conditions. The pass rate is quite low, but again it reflects the poor investment in education."

Goromonzi was singled out as one of the schools that enrols pupils with four units at Grade Seven but is ranked 50 on the rank order list.

"They need to be investigated," said a parent who phoned the Herald yesterday. They owe the nation an explanation. It is unacceptable for a school that enrols the cream and end up with bad results."