The Deputy Minister of Primary and Secondary Education Edgar Moyo said that there is no law that says Advanced Level learners should do a certain number of subjects.
An A’ Level candidate is expected to write three subjects and attain a minimum of two “E’s”, that is, two points in two different subjects to be considered to have passed.
But Moyo said that is just a custom and practice and not based on any law. He said:
The more subjects you learn the greater conceptualisation of the areas that you will be learning.
For example, if someone is doing Pure Mathematics, Further Mathematics and Statistics, the concepts build into each other and help you in other subjects.
The requirement of two or three A’ Level passes at university is just a custom and practice. There is no law that stipulates that.
It emanated from that a child with three subjects which are related, he/she can find a career.
However, the challenge of doing more subjects might be that there will be more workload for the student especially if they are not really gifted and it also becomes a burden to the parents in terms of financing.
The issue has been topical in recent weeks after a former Ruya Adventist Secondary School student Tadiwanashe Mavetera scored 10As in the November 2022 ZIMSEC A’ Level examination.
Moyo said they have noted the debate and concerns being raised by the public and as the Ministry of Education, they will discuss the matter. He said:
We have not really sat down to discuss this issue as a Ministry but it is something that we are just noting.
The public has been raising this issue of high grades so at some point we might need to sit down and look at it probably to come up with a policy because policies come up because of what will be obtaining on the ground.
At the moment what I can say is that we are noting the concerns.
At Pamushana High School in Bikita, 103 students scored more than 15 points each, with the school’s best student, Abraham Ndlovu attaining 30 points after getting straight As in Computer Science, Chemistry, Physics, Geography, Pure Mathematics and Statistics. | The Sunday News