THE National Examination Council of Tanzania (NECTA) has clarified on the passing of teachers from teaching colleges in the country saying that at certificate level the pass mark had increased by 4 percent.
The NECTA Acting Executive Secretary, Dr Charles Msonde said whilst announcing the 31st Association for Educational Assessment in Africa conference that there had been media reports misrepresented the results.
“The reports that there were mass failures among teachers in teaching colleges weren’t correct.
"Actually as compared to last year, the pass mark for certificate qualification increased from 94 per cent to 98 percent while for diplomas, there was little difference,” he said.
Dr Msonde said that in terms of overall marks, 63.5 per cent of those sat for the examinations passed while 35 percent passed but had a number of supplementary papers that they need to re-sit.
He said that in terms of enrolment, this year the number of students had more than doubled that of 2012 thus concluding that the results for this year were not as bad as presented by an article last week that was published in one of the daily newspapers.
Regarding the conference, he said that it would run from August 12 to 16, 2013,where over 400 participants will convene at Ngurudoto Hotel.
The Association for Educational Assessment in Africa (AEAA) is a non-profit making organisation established to promote co-operation amongst examining and assessment bodies in Africa.
“The theme of the conference is enhancing assessment practices for quality education and the conference is expected to be opened by the Zanzibar Second Vice President, Mr Seif Ali Iddi,” he explained.
Dr Msonde said that this was the fifth time that Tanzania was hosting the conference - 1983, 1987, 1992, 2002 and this year.
Some of the papers to be presented at the conference include innovation in assessment practices and their implications in improving quality of education, role of classroom assessment practices in improving the quality of education and impact of information and communication technology in educational assessment.
Others are the relationship between continuous assessment and final examination score and the implications on the quality of education, dynamics associated with assessment and learning outcome, challenges associated with assessment of soft skills for quality education and the impact of security breach on the quality of examination and assessment.
AEAA has the objectives of promoting co-operation amongst examining and assessment bodies in Africa; encourage relevant examining and assessment activities among members; sponsor international participation in the field of educational testing and examining and commission/co-ordinate research projects.
The existence of AEAA dates back to 1982 when it was bore out of what was known as the sub-regional Conference for Heads of Institutions responsible for Educational Assessment in Eastern and Southern Africa(AEBESA) whose founding members were Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Botswana, Lesotho and Malawi and many other African countries later joined the association.
In 1992, at Arusha, Tanzania the AEBESA metamorphosed into the AEAA drawing its membership from across the continent of Africa.
