BY FITSUM GETACHEW
Just a few days ago I was lazily watching the evening ETV news when all of a sudden I was attracted by a piece of breaking news. The Ministry of Education had just released the numbers of the much awaited results of the Ethiopian School Leaving exams by hundreds of thousands of students and millions of their family members. In fact the results of the school leaving exams have always been something almost every citizen talked about especially those who had children in schools even at the earlier levels of grades. Sometime their children will face this exam and it is practically the gateway to their future career and life.
University education is considered as the greatest opportunity to attain a certain level of life because then employment would almost certainly be guaranteed, especially in the monarchy years and the Derg ones. Anyone who had university degree had their future career guaranteed. Hence you can figure out how crucial the results of the school leaving exams could be and how anxious parents and students could be. In the older days when there was only one national university having access to that famous institution was the dream of many that was achieved only by a few fortunate ones.
Later on when more universities were opened and more opportunities came by the doors got larger and more students began to be accepted in the various educational institutions the government prepared. Hence with this in the back ground there is always an interest in the results of these exams and even in the days the exams are given, how they are delivered and where they are carried out etc. is all a subject of interest to the population. At times we have heard controversies on the way the exams were given and there have always been speculations that the exams had leaked and so and so schools benefited from it. And hence people said the entire results must be cancelled or reviewed or another round of exams should be administered. This was even more exacerbated with the expansion of the social media.
In recent years there were issues of security in multiple areas even beyond the one that was clearly evident of the conflict in the north and thousands of students could not even go to school to finish their schooling let alone sit for such a crucial exam under the circumstances. We have heard several announcements in connection with these areas where there were active incidents of conflict and violence and others where there had been reports of security threats for the students to be able to study peacefully and be prepared for the exams. In some cases there had been given extra time for these students involved in security threats to have more time to study once the threats were avoided and things had stabilized.
This year the exams did not have any controversies and they were carried out smoothly with the invigilation of teachers selected from various parts of the country, and unlike the other years when the exams were given in high schools, this time around they were given in universities with students having no access to any chance of discussing the exams and in certain cases being helped by certain teachers who sympathized with the students and would help them succeed in the exams.
This was reportedly very wide spread and many would say the results were not totally fair because in certain areas there were clear cases of ‘cheating’ in the exams. The smarter students were identifiable and some of them did help the rest of the class in the answers and those who did not have such help were clearly disadvantaged. However, this time around this was completely avoided because of the arrangements in the way the students were seated to take the exams and the exams themselves were not written in a uniform manner so that copying from the one next in the seat was impossible.
Invigilators were given serious directions not to allow anyone to cheat in the exams and a sort of campaign was carried out even using the media so that students must be honest to themselves and to others not to copy from other students or their hidden notes and practically cheat. Teachers as well were ordered not to give any form of assistance to the students during the sessions.
Hence the newly appointed authorities in the Ministry of Education under the minister Professor Berhanu Nega were very serious and they meant business. That was also why people were anxiously waiting for the announcements of the results. The numbers came out and we heard it all only to be stunned by what sort of results came about. Among the almost nine hundred thousand students who sat for the exam, only about thirty thousand got the passing result that is above fifty percent!
When I first heard this figure I thought that certainly that was the error of the anchor on TV or some other typographical error and I tried to listen more carefully and follow the news. Later on I when I found out it was the right number; I just could not believe it as I heard from others like me who followed the news. Not even four per cent of the students made it to the university! That was when everyone began to wonder what sort of students we had, what sort of teachers we had and indeed what sort of educational system we went through. Everyone was curious to see what sort of reforms the new leaders at the ministry of education would carry out regarding our educational system because it had underwent severe criticism in the past given the poor standard of the graduates let alone those who actually were trying to join the universities.
It is now well known that there are scores of private universities who somehow managed to receive as many students as possible and somehow graduated them in several disciplines. However, the problem with the standard of the students was to come out when there were some problems to resolve that any graduate would but these would not. There was a survey carried out by the university about the standard of education in the country and many of the results were simply alarming according to the ministry of education that carried out the survey.
There were serious problems of reading and writing at an age when everyone was supposed to know better; and there were serious flaws of languages even at higher levels of education. The ministry prepared exams for those who graduated to assess their knowledge and much of the results were disappointing. What is more, the ministry went one step further and carried out exams also to teachers. And the surprising results were that the majority of them did not make it to get the lowest passing grades. Hence the conclusion was simple.
This was a problem that was rolling across the years with generations of students not well taught because they did not even have the right teachers. Hence Professor Berhanu and company decided that there must be an overhaul of the system beginning from the earlier years of school; and there must established serious training institutes for teachers. What was usual was that those with the poorer results were the ones that were enrolled in the teaching profession because those who had relatively better grades went on to be engaged in other more profitable careers.
In other words, due to also the scarcity of teachers to cover all the classes we have in the country at large, many who would not be wanted in other professions were welcome to join the teaching profession. In many instances they had no experience of teaching nor were they given the appropriate preparation and this was another serious problem because many do not even know what sorts of responsibility teachers have with respect to the students and the entire generation. One can easily imagine how unfit these teachers could be because they felt they were not well paid and they did not opt to be teachers. But they became teachers only because circumstances obliged them to join the profession as it was considered a vacant post for any university or college graduate.
There have been carried out multiple researches on this issue and the results showed that there is need for a complete review of the curriculum of the educational system in the country and that is what Berhanu and company have been suggesting in the past few years or so. They have said the problem is deep rooted and needed to be overhauled from the very early days of school because the curriculum needed to be revised and the system of administering classes also.
Undeniably, our education system was copied from the western nations also because the first teachers in our schools were westerners but it was clear that it did not fit our reality. We were not instructed about our country and values we have, the historical heritages we needed to conserve. The curriculum did not reflect the reality in our country and hence it should have been reviewed across the years once we had our own teachers. That is what the new education authorities intend to do and the results we learned this year will be another factor that would decisively help us to move to this direction.
Those who graduate from our universities must be able to relate to the reality of our people and be able to change their lives with their new skills and knowledge. Otherwise their knowledge would only be theoretical and useless. That was also why there was this move more to natural scientific knowledge rather than to social sciences. There is no doubt that Ethiopia as a developing nation needs more engineers, doctors and agriculturalists rather than lawyers and political scientists.
The formula now is seventy per cent natural science and thirty percent social science. The surprising result at the school leaving exams could serve as a blessing in disguise because everyone was shocked and this could facilitate any profound reforms the ministry would take. Parents would welcome the reforms because it decides not only the fate of their children but also of the country as well.
The Ethiopian Herald February 9/2023
