Some stakeholders in the education sector have opposed the decision by the ministry of education to progress all candidates that sat for the grade seven examinations to grade eight.
They have since threatened to hold countrywide protests over the development.
Minister of Education Douglas Syakalima announced a 100 percent national progression rate to Grade Eight for the 409, 441 candidates who sat for the 2021 Grade Seven composite examination.
Mr. Chansa states that the automatic progression is infact killing Zambia’s education system.
But National Action for Quality Education in Zambia (NAQEZ) Executive Director Aaron Chansa says his organisation will not accept the 100% progression of Grade 7 candidates to Grade 8 as this is very wrong, academically suicidal and compromising the quality of education.
He has since indicated that members of his organisation will be staging nationwide demonstrations next week after completing formalities with the Inspector General of Police.
Meanwhile National Union for Public and Private Educators in Zambia (NUPPEZ) National secretary Nelson Mwale states that the only way government should allow grade 7 candidates to progress to grade 8 is on merit as posterity will judge the country harshly if all candidates including those who perform badly are allowed to progress.
Yakosa iyi.
Malnourished kids in that photo due to bad PF pro-poverty policies of the lost decade 2011-2021.
If our children have passes, why should you prevent them from going to grade 8? No one will participate in those protests. We as parents are happy that our children have done well despite disturbances. congratulations boys and girls. to teachers you put in your best for this achievement.
If our children have passed, why should you prevent them from going to grade 8? No one will participate in those protests. We as parents are happy that our children have done well despite disturbances. congratulations boys and girls. To teachers you had put in your best for this achievement.
Nothing seems to be working under upnd. We never experienced such issues during our rule because the country had confidence in our systems and institutions
There is no failing in education please, it is just a bias method of discriminating against slow learners. Children should go through the entire education system and the end of the journey some will progress to trade schools, colleges, universities and any life skills development through hands on jobs or internships.
Appears this clueless NAQEZ think education is exams, just memorizing things. One’s memory can be used to stop one from progressing or not, obviously we want students to work hard and pass, but the passing marks setup in this country have not been rational in that they have been dependent on number of places available. how can you advance the country like that.
We have no choice but to do “whole social grades promotion”due to the Covid traffic jam created when PF recklessly let the virus into Zambia.
Not possible we cannot have a1 00% pass rate when we have 60 pupils in a makeshift classroom taught by a frustrated teacher.. i conquer with the idea of not letting every pupil proceed.
What Zambians dont realise is that these 7 years of schooling is a colonial way of channeling some unsuspecting pupils to hard labor in their gardens and mines. In a normal country there should not be any exam until 12 years of schooling. The grade 7 and 9 exams are a shear waste of resourses and just undermines development. Continous assessment is the way forward as real exams should come in the 12th year for everyone. VIVA New Dawn, job weldone for domesticating what UNICEF has pushed for years in Africa.
I beg the New Dawn Gov to sort our education. This is a good move. Those not smart enough to go till grade 12 can go to tertiary institutions and colleges and still be valued cititzens.
This just shows you that the people at NAQEZ should not be in that office. They have fired themselves
Grade 7 Exams are pointless. They were just put there to filter the number who goes on to secondary school so that the number of students is manageable. Let them all go to G8, quality of education is not only measured by exams. African countries we are too harsh on ourselves.
Education is a right; all children below the age of 16 should be in school. It’s the millennium goals Chiluba signed on your behalf. It’s not unique to Zambia; it’s the same here in Canada.
Actually there shouldn’t be any exams except for grade 12.
The question is will this help the country or not. I believe it will. Infact everyone should be allowed to proceed until g12. This will allow everyone to get a basic education to grade 12. People that have gone up to grade12 are more likely to understand national issues
Some countries don’t have have the g7 and g12. The fact is countries that have done this are doing better. Their populations are more literate. Just doing this will push up zambias literacy levels up
Fake kaiser sulu just shut up, this idea of progressing all G7 was implemented by PF when it was in power which is a good idea. Those PF vuvuzelas who want to protest must be fired, they are PF stooge
The people that came up with this policy all failed their grade 7 and this is how they have seen fit to deal with such trauma by paralyzing the education system as a whole. We are talking of non payment of exam fees. Does it mean grade 7 exams will still be conducted even when they have an automatic progression to grade 8? Might as well just write one final exam in grade 12 if we can have 100 percent pass rate at grade 7 and just above 50 percent at grade 9. What will be grade 12? 10 percent?
I agree with #9 – it should be mandatory for all kids to finish up to grade 12 like every other country.
At grade 12 level some will become professionals, others with skills etc BUT ALL WILL BE BABLE TO UNDERSTAND THE BASICS LIKE COMPUTERS, MATHS, ENGLISH ETC. IT WILL GIVE THEM A FUTURE IN MANY FIELDS.
The govt should ensure that there are enough places for all the kids in secondary schools.
It will also save a lot of costs on exams in grade 7 and 9 which is a waste and can be channeled to the right areas.
WELL DONE UPND
Zambia will be better of with grade 10 or 12 drop outs than grade 7. We cannot continue this trend of ejecting young kids at grade 7 out of the education system. As a matter of fact we better off having drop outs at grade 12 as at this level we have a fairly literate youths who can become productive in other sectors of our economy outside academics.
KZ this nonsense of all progression was started by your party PF!!! it was an appeasement strategy which brought more harm than good. Ask Teachers how they face challenges teaching pupils who can’t read and write in g8. Moreover, there are no adequate places at secondary or basic schools, resulting in pupils crowding in a class (50 to 70 learners). How can one teach properly. Won’t this compromise quality education?
This policy should be reviewed as its not going to improve the standards of learning. I wonder if the Ministry of Education has also looked at the number of space (places) available nationwide to accommodate all the pupils who have passed automatically. Govt should be careful with some of the carry over PF policies as they will make implementation impossible.
#20 yaks.. you may have a point but pointing fingers at PF spoils it. For Upnd to continue with it, then it’s a good idea.
Zambian education: Early days you wrote your exams in grade two if you pass you go to grade 3 or become a teacher to pre school.
You sit again in grade 4 before progress to grade six where again you sit for another exam from there you sit for grade 8( standard 6) for Secondary selection.
1965 grade seven introduced and sat for secondary entrance together with grade eight ( no longer a primary school grade).
All the above stages were abolished in stages until we are left with grade seven.
Whether the current situation is good or bad only time will tell like in cases above. It’s worth giving it a try. Because of the importance the Unip government attached to education there was a year pupils did two grades in one year.
LT, it seems you have a line of narrative you would like to project. Some truly out of line comments are allowed on your platform as long as their align to some narrative. Why are you removing comments which are contrarily to the headlines. Education is for all irrespective of the exam results. Those results should not deny anyone their right to basic education, period.
Only backward thinking people will oppose such a move.
Please the minister to our backward friends that education is right that every child in Zambia in is intitled to and that in the past we had those exams with nonsense of saying, “You have passed but you have not been selected” because there weren’t enough secondary schools.
Infact, all of pupils should be allowed to go through to grade 12 using the same system. Just work at changing the learning systems so we produce inventors, producers and manufacturers for a better Zambia in future.
Nowadays when I post something here it takes approximately 3 to 8 hours.
Would LT please explain why all my posts take this long, Please release my post from this morning when you get a chance.
We should adopt the policy of “No child left behind” and get all the pupils to grade 12, I believe this will be one of the ways we can increase the middle class population in Zambia and this is good for the economy too.
The developed world has 2 years in a row scrapped exams for the last year in secondary schools because of the pandemic, they are now using continuous assessment and the system is proving workable because the pupils are no longer cramming for year end exams where they just cram without really understanding the content.
I believe the young Zambians are smart enough so lets not rob them of their entitlement that is education.