15 Feb 2021

COVID-19 pandemic affected the learner’s performance in the Junior certificate examinations, Regional Director-Operations Northern Region Mr Labane Mokgosi has said.  

He said Lockdown and double-shifting imposed last year to reduce contact time between teachers and leaners made it difficult for teachers to monitor learners and to thoroughly prepare for the examinations. 

He noted that though  Montsamaisa JSS scooped position one in the 2020 Junior Certificate results in the Northern region at 66.3 per cent, the performance  represented a decline of 4.48 per cent as compared to 67.79 per cent in 2019. 

On the other hand, he said pupils with no inherent motivation played a lot due to extra time they had before and after school adding that as a town, parents spent their time at work, thereby leaving children unsupervised which resulted in learners not doing their school work. 

“Pupils who are not good were at a disadvantage particularly in agriculture,” he said, adding that  they were not assessed on their garden work and instead paper 4 which is theory was administered to replace the practical work. That on its own was a disadvantage to learners who would have done better on their practical work, he said. 

He said it was not easy to engage in peer revision, group discussions and presentations which could have benefitted the learners. 

He said  regional support and assistance did not come easy as a result of inadequate time created by the hectic schedule to finish the syllabi. 

“The pandemic brought a lot of panic, fear and instability on learners which impacted on their academic concentration,” he said. 

He said some learners were on their toes with their academic work while others did not, and depending on support from home and personal motivation some took advantage and studied while others took advantage to indulge in wayward behavior. 

“By the time lockdown was imposed some completing classes had covered their syllabi and some that had not tried to re-arrange their teaching plan to fit in the limited period of time left before the final examinations,” he said. 

He said lockdown break created overload of learning material especially for those that did not use Botswana Open University (BOU) learning material which were sent to schools during lockdown. 

He said plans were in place should there be another lockdown to assist learners such as  duplication of Read Ahead Notes while remedial and enrichment schedules were also in place, such as use of available afternoon times for learner study period alongside lesson for double-shifting schools 

“The other intervention was focused reading - where learners are guided to concentrate on the relevant study material,” he said. Ends