By Munhamu Pekeshe

THE Zimbabwe School Examinations Council (ZIMSEC) Ordinary Level results are out and champagne bottles are still popping for a job well done.
We are told the pass rate jumped from 18 percent to an incredible 20 percent.
Credit is duly delivered to the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, teachers, parents and the school children.
UNICEF and Coltart also come up for praise.
Soon, we get to see the top 100 schools in terms of these results. Journalists, analysts and educationists stampede to deliver congratulatory pieces and explain these lofty achievements.
We can only get better, solid foundation has been laid.
From the village, news is about Forget Warikandwa who managed eight ‘As at Warikandwa Secondary School.
At my dear school Unyetu, we await to know whether we are again part of Zimbabwe’s least performing schools.
We are reminded by analysts that boarding schools are havens for academic excellence.
All the top 10 schools are boarding schools, with the top day school being St Peter’s Mbare which is at number 61.
Mission schools provide the right environment for academic achievement.
These schools dominate both the top 10 and top 100 tables. The top non mission school is ZRP High School at number 3, with Goromonzi at number 24 being the top Government school followed by Marondera High at number 36.
The Catholic academic tradition cannot be faulted, screams another analyst.
Three of the top 10 are Catholic schools.
At a watering hole in Marondera, I am also alerted to the fact that three of the top 10 schools are in Mashonaland East Province.
I am left confused and angry.
A couple of months ago, the South African media was awash with stories on their 2013 Matriculation results.
Over 78 percent had passed.
I was impressed by the level of coverage and in particular the depth of analysis, province by province, economic class by economic class, subject by subject.
There were projections on where these 78 percent would go.
A small number would go to university while the majority would be absorbed in vocational colleges to become artisans for their national economy.
Concern was raised on what would happen to the less than 22 percent who failed.
I got angrier.
Now reflecting on our ZIMSEC results and the national response I am reminded of a book, How to Lie with Statistics I came across in graduate school.
This is what ZIMSEC and the media have attempted to do.
In primary school in Unyetu, on a rare day you could have a few cents to afford a half loaf of bread, ‘half white’ as we called it.
Friends would come begging for kahafu (small half).
After giving out a few tiny pieces, you would retire to a secluded place to enjoy what ‘Zuze’ had enjoyed in the school story book.
Everyone involved would feel great that they had a half loaf to themselves.
Later in life we came to appreciate half full is another way of saying half empty.
It is about politicising statistics.
So instead of media headlines screaming 80 percent fail ZIMSEC ‘O’ Level exams, we are fed 20 percent pass ZIMSEC ‘O’ Level exams.
To back this, we are given a meaningless table that seeks to break the hearts of many hardworking teachers and drill holes in the purses of many gullible parents seeking better education for their children.
The much publicised top 10 is dominated by elitist schools that have very stringent Form One selection.
Ask many a parent whose heart has been broken after failing to secure a place for their very gifted child at these much sought after schools.
To select 80 students they will administer an entrance test to over 1 000 very gifted pupils.
They do not worry about Grade Seven results for in essence they are streaming potential ‘four points’ achievers.
They get the best of the best.
Invariably these are well established and well-resourced schools with a supportive parents’ body.
All things being equal, such schools should produce 100 percent pass rate with quality of four ‘A’s and above.
From the table only Monte Cassino Secondary School achieved 100 percent pass.
The rest actually managed to fail some of the geniuses they recruited. Such schools should be investigated and culprits punished accordingly.
The same scandal is witnessed in ‘A’ Level selection at these schools. One of these top 10 has just recruited its 2014 Lower Six class. Minimum qualification was 10 ‘A’s for boys and 9 ‘A’s for girls to do sciences.
Why should we not expect all their students to get 15 points at ‘A’ Level?
When they report that their least student had five points, we are made to celebrate such a scandal!
Supported by false statistics and in pursuit of narrow interests, some of these schools have refused to enroll day scholars from surrounding communal and resettlement areas fearing such students would taint their schools pass rates.
Hats go off to those schools like Goromonzi, St Johns Chikwaka, Sandringham and a few others who have embraced their communities and still manage to compete against the elitists.
I hope ZIMSEC and the relevant Ministry will engage in deeper interrogation of these results.
We need a table that shows which schools top the list in converting promising Grade Sevens into failing ‘O’ Levels.
Who is at the top in converting average grade seven results into quality ‘O’ Level results?
It may very well turn out that St Peters Mbare Secondary placed at number 61 is the top 2013 school.
If a school whose only requirement for Form One is completion of Grade Seven can achieve 68 percent pass rate, hats off to that school community.
Bonuses to its teachers are in order.
We have an education system that has remained stuck in colonial mode of condemning to failure most Africans.
A system obsessed with producing an African clerk, mabharani, whose key qualification is fluency in English.
To many, as in the 1950’s, education means, “a little clerkly instruction in individualism.”
Because under colonial rule education was the visa to escape oppressive manual work, we are still in that mode mentally as seen by our dislike for practical subjects.
Why can’t we have a predominantly practical ‘O’ Level curriculum on offer in Music, Drama, Agriculture, Craftwork, Art and Sports on offer at Unyetu?
We need critical analysis of this education crisis.
We don’t need to mask failure through twisted statistics.