According to Mrs Thumisang Thabela, the Permanent Secretary of Primary and Secondary Education, June examinations for ZIMSEC will start on the 29th of June this year and will run until July 22. This follows the government’s announcement last week that they really wanted June Advanced Level and O level students to write their exams in June.
After the minister has presented our suggested roll-out plan to Cabinet and it is accepted that is the only time we will advise on the date of opening.
As for the June exams, we are starting on June 29 up to July 29.
The June examination is still a priority to us as a ministry. This June examination is the last examination using the old curriculum.
If we do not give these children who want to sit for the examination a chance, it means we are disabling them in terms of a future because they will have to write a new curriculum or syllabus.
The last exams under the old curriculum?
We are baffled by the Pemsec’s claim that these will be the last exams written under the old curriculum. It’s not clear to us what she means by that. We have been using the New Curriculum for a while although the Ministry has suspended the continuous assessment bit of it.
Despite the government’s hopes, continuous assessment will remain a pipe dream. With the economy what it was before the coronavirus pandemic things were already hard for most people. As the lockdown goes into its eighth week most people are struggling to feed themselves and will struggle to raise tution fees let alone the funds necessary to sponsor the needs of continuous assessment.
Therefore although exams will be based on the new curriculum, students will still be assessed solely by means of public examinations for the foreseeable future.
