September 3^rd

(This one is probably only for people with an interest in education!)

Today I am working from home – Mr Josiah suggested that would be best!  The office has become increasingly frantic over the week as the District Education officers prepare for the Standard VII National Examinations and the ‘frantic-ness’ will reach a peak today and over the next 4 days.

The Standard VII exams are an important event! They mark the end of a pupil’s primary school education.  They determine which pupils are allowed to proceed to secondary education, and in which school they will be enrolled.  The Standard VII pupils do not return to school (unless they are at a private school in which case they will be assumed to have passed and will do preparing for Form 1 courses up until Christmas!) until they begin secondary school next January.  Those students who do not pass may repeat Standard VII or start full-time employment.  [Students are sometimes encouraged to fail if their families could not afford to send them to secondary school.]

There are 5 examinations – kiSwahili, english, social studies, mathematics and science – each 1½ or 2 hours, held over 2 days.  The exams cover the syllabus from Standard V to VII.  Each examination has 50 questions.  All but the maths are mostly multiple choice or “fill in the blank” for ease of marking.  The mathematics paper requires just answers on the answer sheet – no marks for working out.  At least this is what we assume!  Getting copies of past exams has proved impossible and I have seen only the ‘mock’ exams prepared by the region and by World Vision.

To pass Standard VII a pupil must achieve a total score across all 5 exams of 100 out of 250.  Scores for individual exams are not important, indeed a pupil could ‘fail’ all exams and still ‘pass’ Standard VII.  At school reviews we were told that some children give up on maths and concentrate on the other four subjects as they feel they will get enough marks to pass – the results we have seen show this could be true with most schools achieving average scores of  around 12 and the best only averaging 20 out of 50. (Compared to a best average of 40/50 for English)

Teachers, Head Teachers, Ward Education Coordinators (WECs) and regions are judged on how well their students do so there is a lot of pressure.  (Maybe Julia could provide aid money to establish a Tanzanian My Schools website if she gets to be PM.)  It is last year’s results that Michelle and I have been collating and analysing to see where we need to put our effort.  The region has itself made mathematics education a priority.

The exams for pupils in Bukoba district will arrive this weekend and be counted out and distributed to each Ward Education Coordinator on Sunday.  On Monday the teachers who have been appointed invigilators will be picked up by bus from their home school and taken to another school to invigilate. ( A sort of magical mystery tour scenario as they don’t know where they are going until they get there.) 

The exams are taken very seriously and the examination is conducted under strict security.  There are forms for each pupil that include photo ID to ensure there is no cheating.  The children are seated one pupil to a desk instead of the usual 3 or 4.

Only the Standard VII children will be at school on Monday and Tuesday – all other students are on mid-term break for the week.  This is handy as ‘End of Ramadan’ holiday and celebrations will be happening on Thursday and Friday.

Michelle and I have prepared a survey to go to schools after the exams are finished to get specific information about professional development needs – our work on running seminars can then begin.

 (Steve and I are having a break too – 4 days at Speke Bay – but more on that next post.)