Friday, March 29, 2024

Continuous assessment system to be introduced in schools

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File:Children learning under a tree at Sialwala Primary School located in Sinazongwe,due to lack of classrooms.

Minister of General Education David Mabumba has announced that his ministry will be introducing a continuous assessment system in schools in a bid to ease the education challenges pupils go through in the country.

Speaking during an interactive meeting with pupils, parents and teachers in Mufumbwe, Mr Mabumba said the ministry will do away with the system of having a number of papers under one subject but instead will implore the continuous assessment for pupils through tests that will be accumulating to form a certain percentage of the total marks in each subject.

He explained that the assessment for grade seven pupils will start at grade five and for grade nine, the assessment will start at grade eight, while the assessment for grade twelve will start at grade ten, respectively.

Mr Mabumba noted that this will help reduce attempts to look for leakages as a result of examination anxiety while relieving the parents from funding access to leakages as the education system will be made easier.

He has since advised pupils to ensure that they desist from absconding from school in order to prevent the risk of losing marks when assessments are done.

And Examination Council of Zambia (ECZ) Senior Education Specialist Edward Songa, says the continuous assessment will be implemented using the already existing ECZ electronic candidate registration system that has already been enhanced.

Mr Songa added that the system has incorporated every school with a centre number, making it possible for teachers to submit the overall marks for the pupils to ECZ.

He has revealed that a team of experts from the ECZ is currently going round the country sensitizing teachers on some specifics involved in the implementation of the continuous assessment programme.

Mr Songa notes that it is important that with the implementation of continuous assessment in schools, teachers are entrusted with the responsibility to assess their pupils on the subjects they deliver to them.

He encouraged teachers, pupils, parents and administrators to play their role in the successful implementation of the introduced continuous assessment.

The Minister of General Education is on a tour of the province to interact with pupils, parents and teachers on success stories from the districts and the challenges thereof.

12 COMMENTS

  1. CA system demands integrity of which is in short supply under PF regime. A corrupt system cannot manage CA system. These PF guys, too many experiments in running the affairs of a country. Lungu is a blind lawyer leading the whole country into a ditch. Sorry PFools, you are simply day dreamers. May be when the credible HH government comes that could be possible. You don’t want sexually transmitted As or wako ni wako foolishness.

  2. mm guys..do you have the capacity to administer these continuous assessments for so many grades? How are you going to ensure that marks are given only to those who have passed? This will be worse than what it is today because the Continuous assessments will be fake. Please rescind this utopia policy.

    • i like this idea but it needs more refinement. I would advise assessments start in the exam years G7 and G9 as opposed to continuous assessments for two to three yeas. Then G12 retains its GCSE exams because are university entry exams..

  3. This is long overdue but in a corrupt nation you have to watch out because Teachers might take advantage to give the wrong assessments. However, continuos assessment is the future of education. Examinations only encourage rote learning. They don’t encourage learning

  4. HOW do they capture pupils from community school who don’t have centre numbers. This needs atleast 5 years to put in moderates before implementation. The ministry have already introduce many new measure which are a infancy level. Why bring more changes when you are clearly struggling to fully implement others. We have a great challenge in terms of record keeping in most school due to lack of special rooms attached to classrooms where teachers can keep the records before submitting then to ecz. It a good programe but needs capacity building before implementation how to you introduce a programe first and then do consultation later. This is confusion mr minister. Kindly put it on the shelf first and work on creating an enabling environment for the successful implementation.
    1. Grading…

  5. What a terrible idea. I will scrap that and introduce practical based assessment. Who needs theory in this age. This minister is a dinosaur.

  6. This is the reason I cannot send my kids to a Zambian school under this useless pf government. I have sent my mixed race kids to school at private schools in Switzerland and the United kingdom. Elisa agrees

  7. Those who have criticised this system don’t know what they are talking about. Forgive them for the know not what they are saying. It is a brilliant idea. Keep it up Mabumba and your team. Refine it to shame the devil.

  8. I am struggling to see how this will work in this country. I would think that the ministry should have tested this for a period of time on a small scale to see how it performs. I actually see more problems with this system, teachers are likely to take advantage.

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