The Zambia National Education Coalition (ZANEC) is pleased with the statement by the Minister of Education, Honorable Douglas Syakalima made on 18th January 2025 during the release of the 2024 Grade 12 School and Teacher Education Examination Results.
ZANEC would like to congratulate the Ministry of Education on the efficient release of the Grade 12 results as it will allow those who did not do well to register for the 2025 external examinations before the registration deadline of 28th February 2025. It is progressive that there was an increase of 3.83 % of candidates who registered for the grade 12 examination in 2024 compared to 2023. It is good that yet again the Examination Council of Zambia (ECZ) successfully conducted the school certificate examination to candidates in South Africa for the third year running. We have also observed that the statement in the second year has included the Teacher Education Examination Results for the Teacher’s Diploma in three programmes: Early Childhood Education, Primary and Secondary. The continued training of teachers by colleges is good.
We further applaud and thank the Ministry of Education for conducting examinations free of leakages at both Grade 12 School Certificate and Teacher Education Diploma levels as this will render credibility to the quality of our school leavers and college graduates being produced. It is, however, unfortunate that during the School Certificate examination, a total of 130 suspected examination malpractice cases were reported compared to 31 cases reported in 2023. We are concerned that whole centres cases had a total of 1,165 candidates involved in malpractice during the grade 12 examinations. Stringent measures need to be put in place to bring an end to malpractices during examinations. We therefore also commend the government for withholding the results of the affected candidates pending investigations.
We are also concerned that the number of candidates who registered for Grade 12 examinations who were absent has increased from 3,093 in 2023 to 3, 418 in 2024 representing an increase of 9.5%.
ZANEC is therefore recommending that:
- As directed by the Minister of Education during the presentation of 2023 Grade 12 examination results, the Ministry should prioritize conducting research to generate evidence on the differences in results across gender in order to put measures that will foster equitable results for boys and girls.
- Yet again we are disappointed that the Ministry of Education has not highlighted the percentage mean scores recorded in the various subjects for examination candidates, as they were doing in the past when releasing examination results. As ZANEC we are of the view that such an analysis is important as it was done to enable the Ministry of Education to take appropriate remedial measures for the subjects where candidates were not performing well.
- As promised by the government, it is important that the Examinations Council of Zambia generates research evidence on the reasons why so many candidates simply register but fail to sit for examinations. Such evidence can help the government devise effective strategies for addressing the problem as having 3, 418 candidates absent from examination at grade 12 is costly and retrogressive.
- Since teacher availability plays a major role in driving performance, we would like to take this opportunity to call on government to consider the timeous recruitment of teachers.
Lastly, we take this opportunity to congratulate the candidates who passed the Grade 12 examinations and the Teacher Education Diploma Examinations. We also wish to thank our 2024 Grade 12 teachers and Teacher Education Diploma lecturers for the job well done.
For/ZANEC
George Hamusunga
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
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