Q FM Africa's Modern Radio
The Zambia National Union of Teachers (ZNUT) has expressed concern at the poor performance of grade 12s that sat for the 2014 examinations.
ZNUT Director for Research Christopher Yalukanda says that the poor performance of the 2014 Grade 12’s was as a result of the Examination Council of Zambia (ECZ) decision to ban extra tuitions in schools.
Mr. Yalukanda had told ZANIS that extra tuitions provided a platform for pupils to have reinforcement of lessons undertaken in class.
Mr. Yalukanda notes that before the ban many pupils especially those in boarding schools will remain behind to get extra lessons apart from those acquired in school as a results improving their performance.
He explains that the performance of pupils was affected by the moving forward of examinations by the examining body as a result most schools had not completed the entire syllabus.
He says the examination time table was changed in a manner that was unusual unlike the ones in the past years which enabled the pupils to do their practical’s before the theory.
Mr. Yalukanda has also stated that teachers where de-motivated by the government decision to introduce a wage freeze and that affected their levels of commitment and effectiveness to duty.
Education, Science, Vocational Training and Early Education Minister Michael Kaingu announced on Friday that out of a total of 119,862 candidates who sat for grade 12 examinations only 66,971 got school certificates representing a 14.1 percentage increase against 2013 figures.