The Minister of Education, Science and Technology, Professor Joyce Ndalichako, has barred head teachers from buying semester exams. He also instructed the school teachers to ensure that they prepare the exams themselves for the way they teach children.
Professor Ndalichako issued the ban in Bagamoyo while opening a three-day internal quality control training workshop for head teachers of primary schools in the Dar es Salaam region. He said there is a tendency in schools instead of teachers composing exams for students, they buy it from traders which is not right.
“We should not relieve the teacher of his or her responsibility to compose student exams by seeking dumb exam boards. I believe the head teachers understand me, ”said Professor Ndalichako.
He said as far as he knows there is one exam board in Tanzania that has the power to compose exams for students and not otherwise. "Right now in some schools there has been a trend to end semester exams people are going to buy, it has reached a point where teachers are going to buy test exams, school test exams are ordered from other places," he said and added; "I know there is only one National Examinations Council, there are probably other exam councils have been formed that have been tasked with compiling exams being brought to schools."
Ndalichako said teachers have been suspended for not composing questions and remain blaming each other and defending themselves that students are failing because the compiler of the exam poses difficult questions. "I am officially seeking all dumb examination councils to remain one. The aim of the assessment is to enable the teacher to identify weaknesses in his students and to take appropriate action and rectify the shortcomings is the main goal of admission done at the school level apart from that done by the examination board, "he said.
Professor Ndalichako said teachers are the administrators of examinations in schools so he is surprised to see they fail to formulate questions instead they buy them from outside the school. "If we allow these things to go, we will remove the responsibility for the people who are paid for this work," he said.
He said such training involved 16,223 head teachers nationwide and that the first phase involved 8,096 head teachers and the second 8,127. The Chief Executive of the Education Leadership Development Agency (ADEM), Dr Siston Masanja, said the agency was set up with the aim of implementing the government's goal of improving education leadership and management. Dr Masanja said the training was based on the current needs of education management, and that every stakeholder in education has its own responsibilities regarding school quality control.
"Local school quality controllers include head teachers, school principals, county education officers, council and regional level education officers as well as the office of President Tamisemi," he said. He emphasized that the aim of the training was to build their capacity to manage the quality of schools and to fulfill the responsibilities of internal school quality control based on the educational standards identified in the school quality control framework.
The co-ordinator of the training, Swaumu Mulokozi, said the third phase training involves participants from the Dar es Salaam region with the aim of building the capacity of 185 school principals from all councils in the region. "This training is aimed at building the school's capacity to control the internal quality of the school, the quality of the curriculum to meet the needs of the student, the success of the student, the quality of leadership and school administration" said Mulokozi.
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