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The examiner this week continues to take a look at the road which the Examinations Council has walked in the last 20 years.

Accreditation

The accreditation period was from 1995 when question papers would be set in Zimbabwe and copies would be sent to Cambridge for comments and during this period we could now defend our own positions if there were any negative comments from them.In the 2-year period between 1997 and 1999, comments, positive or negative, became fewer and fewer and by August 1999 Cambridge weaned off the examinations branch.

We had completed our accreditation period and were declared totally independent and at par with Cambridge in Item Setting, Training of markers, Marking and Grading. Certificates continued being produced in Cambridge for security reasons.

Advanced Level

The Advanced Level was localised from Cambridge in a much shorter time than the Ordinary Level mostly because the localisation process was now known.

This was after the birth of the Zimbabwe School Examinations Council under an interim director in November 1995.

There was also collaboration with CXC, Uganda and Tanzania. The countries offered Advanced Level and ZIMSEC visited the countries and brought experts from there as well for advice.

The process of localisation started in April 2000 and by November 2002 the first ZIMSEC A-Level Examination was written. A-Level was fully localised in 2003.

Standards

Educational standards reflect the perceptions of society at large at any given time. Unfortunately, the results given by any examinations board tend to be tainted by a number of occurrences associated with the particular examination. ZIMSEC has remained alert to such happenings and many measures have been put in place throughout our examination processes so as to safeguard our integrity.

ZIMSEC certificates remain popular throughout the world as the following will illustrate:

Over 200 confirmations of ZIMSEC results are made to various institutions every month with the figure doubling or even trebling during September, October and November when institutions overseas commence their academic year.

Average of 10 confirmations of results are made every week with prospective employers within the country and the region.

Marking

ZIMSEC now has a complement of 15 000 trained examiners.

Marking has migrated through the home based model to centralised marking and now e-Marking for some components.

Examiners undergo a week long training and they are assessed and graded every marking session(QA)

Not every trained examiner is appointed to mark examination scripts(QA)

Before any marking session, examiners go through a National Standardisation Meeting(QA)

All examiners are graded during and after the course of the marking (QA)

Notes adapted from “Examinations Process — Before and After Localisation” by Mrs E C Machingaidze, assistant director for Test Development Research and Evaluation —ZIMSEC.

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