“Entrance tests ban a welcome move”

Newsday

23 June 2014

SCHOOLS across the country have traditionally used entrance tests that were conducted at a fee to select prospective Form One pupils for the following year.

In recent years, however, controversy has shrouded the otherwise noble exercise with some schools accused of deliberately using the tests to rake in phenomenal profits.

It was against this backdrop that the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education recently intervened and banned entrance tests and ordered schools to use Grade Seven examination results for their selection processes.

Schools around the country were charging between $20 and $200 for pupils to go through the selection processes.

Some parents who spoke to NewsDay said they welcomed government intervention as they were being forced to dig deep into their pockets to pay for entrance examinations at several schools where their children had to fight it out with thousands others for a few places.

Edgar Chiwashira said he later discovered that the exercise was designed in such a way that thousands of parents would pay for their children to write the tests when there were just a few places for the pupils.

“Imagine a situation where 2 000 pupils are invited to write an entrance test for $50 when the school only has 100 places for Form One, for example. It’s plain robbery. It means the school is going to make $100 000,” he said.

He added that the government intervention was long overdue and he was happy that action had finally been taken.

Many parents were forced to pay more as their children had to write the entrance tests at several schools to increase their chances of securing Form One places.

Some schools invited as many as 2 500 pupils for interviews when they could accommodate only a 10th of that number in their facilities.

Another parent, Janet Mwatsikesimbe, said her daughter — who is now doing Form One — had to attend entrance interviews at six schools and she was only accepted at one.

“I had paid $240 in total for all the entrance tests, and she was rejected at five of those schools which I thought was unfair.

When we went for the entrance test, I was shocked by the huge numbers of candidates who also wanted Form One places,” she said.

She said although entrance tests were good in that they afforded schools an opportunity to prepare before they took in new Form One pupils, their greed has been their bane and she welcomed the government’s decision.

Instead of using the exercise to properly screen competent students, school heads were ripping off struggling parents, she said.
Progressive Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe secretary-general Raymond Majongwe described entrance tests as a fundraising platform given the way in which schools were now interviewing more people than they could offer places.

“It is purely unfortunate that processes have taken this particular route. It’s unfortunate that schools have now taken to acting in this manner,” Majongwe said.

“You can have 50 places and yet 300 children will sit for the entrance exam. This money ultimately is never accounted for and it’s unfair on the parents.”

The issue of entrance test had become like another chapter in the long–running tale of income raising schemes including holiday and extra lessons as well as incentives paid to teachers to do their job.

Zimbabwe Teachers’ Association president Richard Gundani welcomed the position taken by government to scrap off entrance tests.

“It is a positive development as it brings order in the Form One recruitment exercise. Most schools were setting their own standards which increased the cost of education. As a result, some pupils were failing to access quality education,” he said.

Government recently banned all holiday lessons — except for examination classes — as well as teachers’ incentives.

Former Education minister David Coltart last year said schools should desist from fleecing parents by charging exorbitant entrance test fees for prospective pupils.

“We are not against entrance fees per se, but schools must never use this as a fundraising activity. If a school has entrance tests it can’t have thousands of people sitting for 60 places.

That will be unfair to parents,” Coltart said.

“The charge must be reasonable and it must be in line with the actual costs of running those entrance tests.”

He said schools could not unilaterally increase entrance fees without the consent of parents.

Grade Seven results sufficient?
Traditionally, many secondary schools ignored the Grade Seven results during their intakes as they were based on the results of the entrance tests that would have been written the previous year.

In May this year, acting secretary for Primary and Secondary Education Rogers Sisimayi said the ministry’s policy position was that secondary schools should use Grade Seven results as the basis of their Form One enrollments.

“What is the purpose of Grade Seven examinations if they are not used for Form One entrance? We communicated with schools through the normal channels and that is in our written circulars,” he said, adding that schools were fleecing parents of their hard-earned cash by turning entrance tests into a business.

He added that children from low-income families could not afford the high entrance test fees charged for entrance exams.

The ban came a few weeks before most secondary schools were set
to conduct the tests in which various amounts of non-refundable fees are demanded from prospective pupils.

Sisimayi warned the schools that defying the directive would attract consequences and defiant schools would be dealt with accordingly.

The entrance tests, besides sounding like a parallel education process, were also contributing to the cost of education in the process further burdening the already suffering parents.

Early this month, Association of Trust Schools (ATS) chairperson Abe Gatsi said most schools were preparing for entrance tests — with most of them scheduled for July 5 — but no fees would be charged to students.

“What we want is to get the cream of the nation. We don’t want to recruit Form Ones basing on Grade Seven results which are released late. It is also possible that children can panic during the exam and not attain marks they would have always been attaining throughout the year, so we want to test these children while they are calm, to get the best out of them,” Gatsi said.

“If Zimsec assures us results would be out on time then we might in future consider enrolling for Form One based on that, but until they give us that assurance, we are going to hold our entrance tests free of charge to willing candidates.”

Entrance test, acceptance fees — two sides of the same coin?

Some elite schools under the ATS umbrella have, however, been accused of charging a non-refundable acceptance fee of
$2 700 for students to be enrolled for Form One next year.

The elite league of schools that include Chisipite Senior, Christian Brothers’ College, Eaglesvale High, Girls College, Hillcrest College, Peterhouse Boys, Peterhouse Girls, St George’s College, The Heritage, St John’s College, Watershed College, Westridge High, Falcon College and Gateway High School will be holding entrance examinations on July 5.

Primary and Secondary Education minister Lazarus Dokora has accused ATS for making life difficult for parents and said their demands were not only unacceptable, but illegal.

Since dollarisation in February 2009 there have been calls on government to provide fees guidelines for private schools.

Most government schools in high density and rural areas pay at least $5 as fees per term while those in low-density areas are paying $30 per term and a minimum of $20 for secondary schools.

Fees for schools under the ATS umbrella range from $2 700 to $3 500 for day scholars and boarders respectively in secondary school.