Tanzania: CSEE Results - It's Time to Go Back to the Drawing Board
The results of the 2011 National Secondary Education Certificate Examinations are out.
Fifty-three per cent of examinees have passed. At the same time, results of more than 3,000 examinees have been cancelled for cheating. The general national mood is mixed, with one half celebrating and the other lamenting.
Digging deeper, the results tell us a lot. Of those who passed, only 10 per cent were in the first to third divisions. Moreover, the official data on cheating could be just the tip of the iceberg. A good number may have got away with it.
The key questions, then, are: With these results, have we won or lost as a nation? Do we have reason to celebrate?
In essence, the 2011 CSEE results demonstrate that we have serious institutional challenges. If we do not take bold steps to fix them, the country will crash with a big thud. It should not happen to a country at this stage of development, not when we still have such a long way to go.
When a section of society sits to write an examination, it is the entire nation writing it because the results will mirror what really goes on at the community level.
The results tell us a lot about our individual levels of intellectual and spiritual growth and values such as integrity, honesty, accountability. They also indicate how much we are prepared to sacrifice our own pleasures for the sake of building the nation.
This is a good time to do some soul-searching and analyse how, when and where we went wrong. The family is the starting point. We mould personal values and character within the family. Do we teach our young ones values that are best for our society?
While we commend students who really worked hard to pass, we call upon our leaders to turn the nation in the right direction. The standard pass for a particular group should be over 90 per cent.
We must cultivate integrity, accountability, honesty and hard work to improve results. Tell our children that there are no shortcuts in life.
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