No CALA, No Results For O' And A' Level Candidates - ZIMSEC

The Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (ZIMSEC) says Ordinary and Advanced Level candidates who do not have a Continuous Assessment Learning Area (CALA) mark, will not get their results even if they have written the theoretical part of the examinations, reported The Herald.

Speaking at the release of June O and A-Level results at a Press conference in Harare on Tuesday, 06 August, ZIMSEC board chairperson Professor Paul Mapfumo said:

The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education’s position is that if a candidate does not have a CALA mark, then there will be no results even if the theoretical part of the examination was written.

In February 2024, the Government announced changes to the education curriculum, with CALA now being called school-based projects.

At the infant level of ECD A to Grade 2, subjects under CALA were reduced from the previous 11 to six and this reduction was extended to apply at the junior level of Grades 3 to 7.

At the secondary school level, the core and compulsory learning areas were reduced from seven to five.

Meanwhile, Prof Mapfumo said a total of 32 026 candidates registered for the O-Level June 2024 examinations and of these, there were 919 school candidates and 31 107 private candidates.

He also said a total of 30 088 of the 32 026 who registered for O-Level sat for a range of subjects from one to seven in June 2024 compared to 21 683 candidates who sat for a range of subjects from one to eight in June 2023. Said Prof Mapfumo:

This shows an increase of 8 405 candidates which translates to 38.76 percent and the number of school candidates was 825 while 29 263 were private candidates.

There was an increase in candidates with special needs from 14 to 38 translating to a 157 percentage increase.

A total of 1,938 of the registered candidates did not sit for the examinations and were recorded as absent. Said Prof Mapfumo:

The total number of candidates who sat for five or more subjects in the June 2024 examinations was 383 which is 1.27 percent of the total candidature of 30 088 and the remainder sat for less than five subjects.

Of these 383, 17 candidates passed with a Grace C or better yielding a total pass rate of 4.44 percent. In comparison, the total number of candidates who sat for five or more subjects in June 2023 was 365 which was 1.68 percent of the total candidature of 21 683 and the remainder sat for four or less. Of these, 99 candidates passed with Grade C or better yielding a pass rate of 0.46 percent.

Prof Mapfumo said the total number of candidates who registered for the June 2024 A-level examination was 144 and of these, 125 were private candidates and 19 were school candidates. He said:

The total number of those who sat for the June 2024 Advanced level examination was 120 as compared to 256 who sat for the same examination in 2023. There was a decrease of 136 in candidature, translating to a percentage decrease of 53 per cent.

Of these, 52 candidates wrote two or more subjects and 38 obtained a Grade E or better in two or more subjects. This translates to an overall pass rate of 31.67 per cent.

In comparison, in the June 2023 examination, 112 candidates wrote two or more subjects and 85 obtained a Grade E or better in two or more subjects.

This translated to a 75.89 per cent pass rate. These statistics show that there was a 44.22 per cent decrease in the overall pass rate.

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