Poor examination performance: Causes, Consequences and Possible solutions
It was shocking news that only 3.3 % of the students that sat for the Ethiopian secondary school leaving examination scored a result above 50%. This news has become viral news that Ethiopians in every corner of the country were discussing this week. It is a great disappointment for the families of the students, teachers, and students themselves. This is also a great loss for this nation that was already raged by conflicts, ethnic tensions, droughts, inflation and many other challenges.
The exam, which was administered in a special way in order to prevent cheating and with intention of improving the quality of education, was taken by students seeking entrance to the country’s more than 50 universities. The results were released online on January 27, 2023, and it is reported that government officials, including the Prime Minister, have been informed of the low student achievement. The number of students who passed the exam does not match the capacity of the universities to admit students, leading to discussions about alternative solutions such as offering tutoring for students who scored close to passing.
Picture: Ethiopian minister of Education professor Birhanu Nega briefing the media on the results of national examination. January 27,2023 Source MoE
Causes of these devastating results
There are multiple factors that contributed to these devastating results such as poor education service delivery in the country. This country has poor education service delivery mechanisms such as high number of teacher class ratio, poor education environment, low access to educational inputs such as curriculum materials, and low job satisfaction among the teachers and school administrators.
The other factor that has contributed to this devastating result is the adaptation of the culture of cheating the examination and examination malpractices that millions have promoted prior to the current patch of examinees. Adaptation of exam malpractice has become a new normal before the current administration of the examination in universities. Social media accessibility also took some attention from the students and hinder their ability to make better efforts.
The other major factor that has a role in these devastating results is the instability of this nation, Ethiopia is among the countries that have millions of internally displaced peoples due to ethnic tensions, conflicts, droughts, and other factors, Thanks to a peace deal in Pretoria by the government and Tigray people’s liberation front the countries stability is now getting better
Consequences of these devastating results
The failure of most of the students has major consequences for the country’s economy, security, and also social life of the citizens. To start with the consequences on the economy; the government has put a major investment in the education sector for the last 30 years to increase the literacy rate of the citizens, improve access to education and strengthen the quality. Currently, the government has put billions of Ethiopian birrs into the administration of the examination in the universities which is more than the budget for the previous mechanism of the exam administration. In addition to that, there is a remedial program that the students that failed the examination will be given, and demands an extra budget and effort. The security consequences, that failure of in the exam will make hundreds of thousands of students to be out of the university and they are vulnerable to human traffickers, terrorists, and other ill-minded organizations. The failure of students may also affect their mental health of the students and needs to be addressed psychologically. On the positive consequences of this failure, there will be no student in the future that will rely on cheating and examination malpractices and this will contribute to the quality of education.
Possible solutions
To prevent these type of examination failures happen again, the following measures may be important
- To increase the availability of educational inputs in the whole country
- Parents of the students take their role which is to follow up and monitor the performance of their students
- Teachers should play their role which is to nature the student’s minds with knowledge and prepare them to promote the exam
- The researchers, higher education institutions, and research institutions make problem-solving research in this matter
- The ministry should implement the recommendations of the researchers in this matter
- The students should increase their effort and take responsibility of learning with effort
Abdifatah Abdullahi Abdi
Ph.D. student in Environmental Health at Haramaya University
Lecturer at Kebridehar university.
Phatah11@gmail.com
Jigjiga, Ethiopia
