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POLICY TO ELIMINATE FAILURES WON’T AFFECT EXAMS COUNCIL

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MBABANE – The Exams Council of Swaziland will not be influenced by the proposed normal progression policy, which government is working on.


This is because the organisation is independent and its mandate is to assess the performance of pupils in their external examinations.
The news that government, through the Ministry of Education and Training, is working on a policy whose aim is to reduce the repetition rate, has been met with mixed feelings, with most stakeholders worried that the Exams Council will not be integrated, which could lead to many failures in Grade VII, Form III and V.


The concerns arise from the fact that the five per cent repetition rate would lead to most pupils progressing to the next class when they do not deserve to or are not capable of passing when it comes to the classes that sit for external exams such as Grade VII, Form III and V. “Even though we have not discussed the proposed review you are talking about, our department has its own mandate which is to assess and what happens with the policies will not affect us. We are independent so I wouldn’t predict how this will affect our performance when it comes to exams,” said Exams Council Registrar Dr Edmund Mazibuko in an interview yesterday.


However, Mazibuko mentioned that such concerns would be addressed by the Examinations Bill, which he said had already been presented to Cabinet. He said they were hopeful that the bill would be approved before the end of the year.
The five per cent repetition rate is contained in the Swaziland Education and Training Policy of 2011 but has not been implemented in schools as yet. It was only last year that inspectors engaged schools and the starting point was 10 per cent.

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