Moffat Mungazi
Samuel Kadungure
News Editor
A TOTAL of 536 candidates from Manicaland Province achieved outstanding results in the 2024 Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (ZIMSEC) Grade Seven examinations.
Notably, no school in the province recorded a zero percent pass-rate as candidates passed with flying colours in Mathematics, English Language, Indigenous Language, Agriculture, Science and Technology and ICT; Social Sciences and Physical Education and Arts, benchmarking them for advancement to high school.
Mutare Junior Primary School emerged as the top performer, with 75 candidates achieving six units.
Baring Primary and Chancellor Junior schools followed closely, with 57 and 42 candidates achieving six units, respectively.
Last year, Mutare Junior was number one with 90 candidates with six units, and authorities were still compiling statistics for those with seven, eight and nine units at the time of going to print.
In 2022, Mutare Junior had 54 with six units.
Baring Primary was perched at number two with 57 candidates with six units, followed by Chancellor Junior School, which had 42 with six units. In 2023, Baring Primary was second with 65 learners with six units; 30 candidates with seven units; 27 with eight units; and 16 with nine units. Only one candidate failed, giving the school a 99.12 percent pass-rate.
Last year, Chancellor Junior School was among the top performers, with 145 out of the 304 candidates who sat the Grade Seven exams scoring between six and nine units.
It had 48 with six units; 55 candidates with seven units, 25 with eight units and 14 with nine units, and only two candidates failed, giving it a 99,98 percent pass-rate.
Roman Catholic Church-run St Joseph’s Primary (Rusape) joined the top five performers with 28 candidates with six units, followed by their neighbours, John Cowie Primary, with 25 candidates with six points.
Last year, St Joseph’s Primary School had 43 six pointers; 22 candidates with seven units, 11 with eight units and 20 with nine units, while John Cowie had a total of 100 out of 203 candidates scoring between six and nine units.
It had 45 with six units; 30 candidates with seven units, 11 with eight units and 14 with nine units.
Acting Manicaland Provincial Education Director, Mr Richard Gabaza, attributed the success to the dedication and hard work of learners, teachers, and school administrators.
He emphasised the importance of transparency and fairness in the enrolment process for Form One learners.
Mr Gabaza also said in the Top 10 were Chipinge Junior School with 22 candidates with six units, Mt Mellerary Primary with 19 six pointers, 3 Brigade Primary with 18 with six units, Cross Kopje with 17 candidates with six units and Chirowakamwe Primary with 15 with six units. Last year, Mt Mellerary Primary had 104 candidates scoring between six and nine units.
The Nyanga-based mission school had 50 candidates with six units, 25 with seven units, 21 with eight units and eight with nine units.
The school had a 100 percent pass-rate.
“The above mentioned schools were our Top 10 performers, but we also had a number of schools with 14 and below six pointers, including 69 schools with six pointers. We want to express our heartfelt appreciation to the schools that did well because it did not come on a silver platter. It was through determination, dedication, courage and perseverance. On our part as the ministry, our officials were on the ground, monitoring and supervising the implementation of the curriculum in the best possible way to make sure that we remain a quality province with quality learners and quality schools. That is what we are as Manicaland — we are privileged to lead and the rest follow us,” said Mr Gabaza.
Mr Gabaza said the provincial average pass-rate is not yet available, and will only be obtained after schools analyse the results, and send them to the district for onward submission to the provincial offices for calculation.
“We distributed the results on Monday, so the schools are still working on that. But we are looking forward to surpass last year’s pass-rate. It appears the schools did exceptionally well when compared to last year. Probably, after this week, you can come back to us and get the provincial average pass-rate.
I would also like to highlight that as we did a rundown of the results, we did not come across any school in Manicaland that had zero percent pass-rate. Though it was a random sampling, and we still await what comes from the schools, we did not get any school that scored zero percent pass-rate, and normally at Grade Seven, we hardly have such schools,” said Mr Gabaza.
Obtaining a high score at Grade Seven paves the way for easy admission in the best high schools, most of which have already set their cut-offs at eight units, as they stampede for the best brains.
As the 536 high flyers queue for limited Form One boarding schools, Mr Gabaza called for fairness and transparency in the enrolment process.
He said parents no longer need to travel to schools to secure Form One places as they can use the e-map platform where learners apply to five schools and are responded to on the same platform.
“The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has implemented measures to ensure a smooth enrollment process, including the use of an e-map platform. We no longer encourage parents to travel to schools to secure Form One places; we have an e-map platform where learners apply to their preferred schools and are responded to by those schools online.
“As the ministry, we also have officials on the ground monitoring the implementation of the e-map enrolment exercise to see if it is being implemented in the best interest of the child. So those are measures we have put in place to minimise any issues to do with corruption, bias or lack of transparency in the admission of learners in schools for Form One,” said Mr Gabaza, emphasising that each school should have an admissions committee led by the deputy head, under the supervision of the school head.
“That is also another element that engenders transparency because we have an admissions committee at each school superintended by the school head. The deputy head is in charge of that under the supervision of the school head,” he said.
Government has also pledged to eliminate the zero percent pass-rate recorded by some schools in other provinces, targeting a nearly 100 percent national pass-rate by 2030.
The 2024 Grade Seven results showed a 49,01 percent pass-rate, a notable increase from last year’s 45,57 percent.
Girls achieved an average pass-rate of 53,68 percent, while boys had a lower rate of 43,99 percent.
Director of Communications and Advocacy in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, Mr Taungana Ndoro said Government plans to allocate more resources, including providing textbooks, teaching materials, advanced technology and building Science laboratories to the low performing schools.
“The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education is proud of the Grade Seven examination performance for 2024, which shows that fundamentally we are improving over the last four years. In 2020, our pass-rate was around 37 percent and now 2024 it is at 49 percent, which is a phenomenal increase of about 12 percent over the last four years, which is very commendable. We see ourselves going forward increasing our pass-rate bridging the 50 percent mark by next year and in the foreseeable future up until 2030 when we should be almost 100 percent.
“In terms of the pass-rates, the zero percent pass-rate, I am sure we have repeatedly said that this is soon going to be a thing of the past. As I indicated the trends are showing that the pass-rate has been increasing over the past four years. So, we know it will be extinct very soon because our strategies are working well,” said Mr Ndoro.
