By Bunnet Munthali
Ministry of Education announced the 2023 Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) examination results in September which showed that 70 286 candidates failed and that community day secondary schools (CDSSs) were the worst performers.
Speaking during the announcement of the results, Deputy Minister of Education Nancy Chaola-Mdooko said the ministry would look into factors that led to the poor performance of CDSSs in that year’s MSCE results which registered an overall decline in pass rate of 54.4 percent, down from 58.4 percent in 2022.
She acknowledged the decline in the pass rate from the previous year 2022, adding that the ministry would make every effort to make sure that education was improved in Malawi.
This article critically focuses on some of the challenges in public schools and offers some solutions with an aim of improving educational standards.
The Challenges
Examinations
Examinations provide numerous benefits, including building confidence, developing self-analysis skills, promoting healthy competition, and stimulating learning.
They also teach students to manage their time and prepare for future challenges, such as college and professional life. Common reasons for examination failure include poor preparation, time management, and understanding of the concepts. Distractions, anxiety, and health issues can also lead to failure. Failures are part and parcel of life. It should be used constructively to prepare better for the examination.
The general pass rate in public schools has not been impressive over the years despite having trained and qualified teachers with high experience. The impact of having qualified teachers in these schools is not being felt and I think a lot more could be done to improve the situation.
Teachers punctuality
I have personally observed that some teachers in public schools are not punctual for their duties and ready each time I made an arranged visit or even surprise visits to those schools, I couldn’t find the particular teachers I was looking for. I also noticed that classes started later than expected where I saw students getting into class without their teachers showing up for the first lesson of the day.
Lack of punctuality has an impact on all other learners as it disrupts the class, and the teacher is required to give directions to late pupils, often console the late pupil and then recap on missing learning. This reduces learning time for the rest of the class.
The Role of Teachers
It is the duty of the teachers to emphasize attendance from day one.
Greet students and families personally and ask about absences. Engage students in tracking their own attendance. Talk about attendance at back-to-school nights. Contact parents early to discuss weak areas of the learners.
Don’t wait for parent-teacher conferences because it would be too late to address some challenges and issues.
Students’ Attendance
Poor attendance can lead to students who are not engaged in their learning, as well as a loss of respect from their peers. Also, teachers who are absent often feel guilty and as a result, may make changes to their work schedule or personal lives in order to make up for their absences.
Sometimes they panic to confidently begin their lesson because of late arrival for duties. Regular attendance fosters a classroom community between teachers and children. Students who attend school are more likely to succeed academically.
Students gain background knowledge from discussions while learning in school. Attending school also provides time for social interactions with peers.
The correlation between attendance and dropout rates has important ramifications that go beyond the classroom.
The bridgeCompared to their peers who graduate, students who fail to complete their high school education are more likely to live in poverty, suffer poor health, and become involved in the criminal justice system.
Students’ Class Time
As a result of teachers poor punctuality, you will notice that the first period of learning time usually goes to waste. It is also important for students to manage their time.
It ensures that they are well prepared, organized and focused to manage their daily lives and complete academic assignments on time. It can lead to improved success, however, this is a skill that students have to learn and practice.
They must change their habits in order to have good time management skills.
Lesson Delivery
I think that their could be a problem with lesson delivery in our public schools.
The Lesson Delivery component of Sheltered Instruction invites the teacher to consider how every step in the lesson moves the students closer to the lesson’s objectives.
TESOL Trainers provides teacher training on strategies and techniques to make lesson delivery more efficient and effective.
TESOL stands for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.
TESOL includes teaching English as a foreign language (such as in the China example) as well as teaching English as a second language (TESL), meaning in a country where the primary language is English.
One of the importance of having effective lesson plan is to ensure that the learning objectives are conveyed clearly by the end of the lesson.
When a lesson is effectively delivered this shows that the students understood the lesson objectives that have been set by their teacher. Superior teaching stimulate student to study and perform at least as expected. Poor teaching demotivates them which catalyse the process of diminishing interest on the topic.
Commitment
Teachers commitment seems to be lacking in our schools unless I’m corrected with convincing examples.
Teacher commitment to learners embraces educators’ inclination to assist learners and take accountability for their education. Commitment to instruction offers educators the obligation to examine novel methods of instruction to build learners’ educational encounters.
Teachers play a vital role in creating an environment that supports students’ learning. They often do this through their support for students’ autonomy.
By supporting students’ choices and interests, teachers help students develop personal interest, involvement, and ownership of their work, which aid in motivation.
It’s also worth noting that teacher absenteeism can have non-academic impacts on students, such as reduced motivation, decreased attendance, and increased behavior problems. Students may be inclined to take substitute teachers less seriously, thus leading them to skip class or tune out others call it banking classes. The role of teachers is very important. The students normally sit doing nothing in the absence of their teacher.
Teacher commitment is an essential component for quality education. Commitment provides teachers the love, desire and energy they need to perform better. Committed teachers are thought to be more satisfied with teaching and always strive for accomplishing a good instruction (Somech & Bogler, 2002)
Committed teachers love teaching and work with students through building good relationships with them and showing them respect. Such teachers also have unquestionable loyalty to the profession, which leads to effective teaching and student learning.
Commitment to teaching is a crucial factor to contribute to the achievement of students. In addition, passion has a motivating factor; therefore, it is a significant need for high quality learning and teaching.
Passion is seeking for the new, and experiencing new ideas. Passion is on the basis of effective teaching.
Syllabus coverage
There’s a probability that the syllabus is not being fully covered by the time student sit for their examination.
The syllabus lays out your expectations for the quality of work you expect from your students and shows students how they should prepare for class. For example, the syllabus can explain whether students are supposed to do the readings before or after class.
The syllabus provides a map of the curriculum; it identifies a central question or set of questions (often in the course description), as well as central themes and important concepts (often through the titles of the weeks’ topics), and invites students to draw connections among them.
It is worth to note that non coverage of school syllabus will result to poor performance of students in external examinations and thus limit the education sector’s goal of providing quality education for development.
This jeopardizes achievement of set out goals in education sector.
Homework
Government schools rarely give give and sometimes completely do not give any homework to their students at all, so they have less or no engagement with their school work when they get home.
Homework helps teachers determine how well the lessons are being understood by their students. Homework teaches students how to problem solve.
Homework gives student another opportunity to review class material.
Homework gives parents a chance to see what is being learned in school. There are many consequences of not doing homework.
It can further limit students from understanding the new concepts that will be taught in the class.
Learners may either understand just a little or remain completely clueless about what is being taught. It can significantly affect their overall academic performance. They are likely to fall behind other students in the class.
Past Paper Revision
Finally, I don’t usually see any past papers being given to students in government schools to allow them practice at home.
This is clear indication that candidates in government schools have very little exposure to examination past papers which is a very important area that is being ignored.
Schools must have Malawi National Examinations Board (MANEB) past papers enough for each and every student to get a copy and practice answering the questions at any given time.
These papers must be in their original form printed by MANEB and given to eachi student for free without having to pay or photocopy.
Photocopying becomes another issue which disadvantages the less privileged students so paying any fees for photocopying must be discouraged and avoided at all costs.
Why is revising a paper important? When we revise our writing, we take the opportunity to step back and re-envision it.
We think about the goals of the paper and whether we have accomplished these goals. We ensure that our ideas are clearly expressed and well supported.
In studying, revision will help students remember the important facts, figures, topics and methodologies that they studied in the past.
In examinations, revision will help learners be better able to answer test questions. They’ll feel prepared.
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