Form VI results encouraging but let’s not forget systemic challenges

Strong contention was also being felt and as usual private schools and seminaries were shining but government schools were not too far behind. There were a number of laggards in the listing, and it is likely that quite a few of them come from the so-called ward schools, but their performance has constantly improved.

Those are fairly good signs if the ward schools whose construction and equipping was a source of public sector contention and has been driven by directives and compulsions operated by the presidency through the President’s Office, Regional Administration and Local Governments (PO-RALG). The latest drive was the construction of laboratories especially for ward schools, and as far as most can remember, that drive has been successfully completed, in which case most schools are likely to have rudimentary laboratory facilities at the very least. The effort goes on.

That is why a keen observer of our education system will be somewhat worried by the high percentage rate in Form VI exams, given the fact that many such students did not have the benefit of proper laboratories earlier, aside from shortages in various requirements. In that case the level of passes is a psychologically rewarding picture of improvement, in that schools have similar capacities to perform, without an excessively large gap existing between the various categories of schools, though differences are all too apparent. This looks satisfactory enough.

The problem remains at the transition from high school (or secondary school as a whole) to tertiary education, meaning higher learning institutions generally and even vocational training schools specifically. Here there are all sorts of interpretations of secondary school pass marks, and the government has continually battled efforts of private secondary schools to maintain levels of excellence that are not available in government secondary schools. There is a near blanket refusal of repeating classes or additional sittings for exam to improve low scores earlier.

Looking at the 96 per cent pass rate reported in Form VI exams and the constant berating of the low technical proficiency of college output at the local level, it is hard to say that the problem just starts at the tertiary level while the sort of education provided up to high school is adequate. If there are glaring shortcomings in the structure of education, it is evident that confetti about 96 per cent pass rate is nearly a circus, for no one can say for sure how many of those students even distantly compare with the same class 40 years ago. It’s about our Universal Primary Education.

While the idea of universal primary education was laudable as has been the follow-up quest for universal secondary education, failing to solve the start up problems has remained a bottleneck. While ward secondary schools are catching up somewhat with the more established schools, this is operated at a particularly low pass mark level which private schools fail to take seriously as a credible standard. 

They hence meet with the wrath of government, as it seeks equity in that field instead of the presence of what top administrators would treat as ‘classes.’ They insist that they need to be blunted wherever they show up, as otherwise national solidarity will soon be at issue.