COMBATIVE former deputy prime minister, Arthur Mutambara has described the 2019 Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (ZIMSEC) Ordinary and Advanced Level results as shameful and a disgrace, lacking follow normal examination standards.
The 2019 O and A Levels results were released early this month.
In a statement this week, the former PM in the now defunct inclusive government, argued that the 2019 results were; “disgraceful and shameful national cancer.”
“How do you get 56% of the students from one school get the same top examination outcome? These results are a disservice to the best and brightest students. In fact, they are a disservice to all the students,” he said Thursday.
“How do you get one school getting 79 students with 15 points (or more) out of 140 students? This is 56% of the students getting the same top examination outcome. This is shameless grade inflation.
“Throughout the country, some schools have such results as 37, 25 or such large numbers of 15-pointers each. While these achievements must be celebrated and the students applauded, there is a problem.”
A robotics professor and former student leader at the University of Zimbabwe, Mutambara said the results did not differentiate top students from the multitudes who had also passed.
“Grade inflation is not a good idea. I have received a lot of requests from these students with fifteen or more from this year’s results, asking for opportunities at top universities across the world. While I congratulate the high achievers and I am excited for them, it is very tough to sell their outstanding results to great institutions outside Zimbabwe, because of the obvious and disgraceful grade inflation. Do you approach Oxford or Harvard with 1000 such 15-pointers from Zimbabwe? It is a joke.
“Why do we say this? When you present 1000 students with 15 points from one country (obtained in one sitting) to a university like Oxford or Harvard, it is meaningless because the 1000 students are not differentiated.”
He added: “You cannot tell who is in the top 10 or 20 among the 1000 outstanding students. You put the top university in an invidious situation. They cannot admit them, and yet some of the 1000 students would definitely qualify to study in these top and globally competitive programmes.
“However, you do not know who they are. You might have to give the 1000 students another examination to rank them. This is the challenge that is presented by grade inflation.”
Mutambara said ZIMSEC must sort out the mess.
“We must protect the brand, opportunities and possibilities for all our students (the country’s future human capital), starting from primary school, through high school right up to tertiary education. Sorting out the mess at ZIMSEC, the disgraceful and shameful grade inflation, is a national imperative.”
