Pupils study wrong setbooks
By Phyllis Kachere
FOR the second consecutive year, literature students at Mabelreign Girls'
High School in Harare are waiting to sit for their public examinations after
studying the wrong set books.
In what must surely be an unprecedented administrative oversight, 19
Advanced Level candidates are at risk of failing next month's examinations
after they were made to read Caribbean literature instead of African
literature.
The Sunday Mail could not establish which textbooks they read for the
Caribbean literature.
The African literature setbooks they were supposed to have read are
Ancestors by Chenjerai Hove, A Grain of Wheat by Ngugi wa Thiong'o and A Man
of the People by Chinua Achebe.
Although some of the affected students and teachers at the school confirmed
to this reporter that they had indeed studied the wrong setbooks, the senior
mistress who was in charge at the school on Friday maintained all was well.
The school's headmistress was said to be away when The Sunday Mail visited
the school on Friday afternoon.
The regional director for Harare, Mr Thomax Dhobha, did not reply to
messages left at his office, while the Ministry of Education, Sport and
Culture's permanent secretary, Dr Stephen Mahere, did not answer calls to
his mobile phone.
Neither did he respond to messages left at his office.
The anomaly was discovered at the beginning of this term and it is believed
that a neighbouring school offered the school the correct textbooks and some
study material.
It is not clear how the students ended up studying the wrong books when a
syllabus is available and the school has a head of department who is
supposed to ensure that the right syllabus is followed.
This is not the first time Mabelreign Girls' High School has been in the
news for making students study the wrong books for literature examinations.
Last year, some 40 Ordinary Level students who were supposed to have read
Waiting for the Rain by Charles Mungoshi and I Will Marry When I Want by
Ngugi Wa Thiong'o, ended up studying Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe,
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens and Twelfth Night by William
Shakespeare. Parents of the concerned students who talked to The Sunday Mail
were angry at the developments.
They complained that their children had been made to study the wrong books
for two years running but were now expected to study the correct books in
less than a month.
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