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Urgent action plan needed

Aug 02,2015 - Last updated at Aug 02,2015

When not a single student in 338 public schools and 11 private schools passes the General Secondary Education Examination (Tawjihi) summer session, the blame must rest with the low standard of education in these institutions. 

It is not reasonable to put the blame on students for failing the Tawjihi exam this summer when there is an obvious phenomenon of systematic failures across certain areas of the country. 

For starters, only 20,526 of the 49,972 students who sat for the exam’s academic stream passed, putting the pass rate at 41 per cent. 

It so happens that the failure rate is high in regions that are poor and underdeveloped. 

When there is a zero pass rate in 79 schools in Mafraq District, this says a lot about the low quality of education in these schools. And when no student passes the exam in 50 out of 75 schools in the Northeastern Badia, where 1,700 students sat for the exam, the presumption that the low quality of education in these areas is most probably the cause is reinforced. 

The same goes for the Northwestern Badia, where there was a zero pass rate in 19 out of 59 schools. 

An official from the district, where 1,871 students sat for the summer session exam, blamed the failure of so many on unqualified teachers, student absences and their dependence on cheating

The crisis is obviously not limited to public schools since 11 private institutions also scored a zero pass rate. 

The Education Ministry must draw the proper conclusions from these dismal rates and act accordingly to rectify the reasons for the poor showing by schools in certain areas of the county.

 

There is obviously an urgent need for a plan of action to improve schools in many neglected districts of the country, either by hiring more qualified teachers or through improvements in the classroom environment. 

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