Teacher’s mind: Sick candidates should be exempted from exams

Very early on Sunday, November 4, a student came knocking at my door. At first I hesitated to wake up because even though it was a Sunday I did not have any intentions of going for prayers, and more so not that early in the morning cold. After about two minutes I decided to open the window to see what this student had to say. That is when he informed me that a S.3 student of Alliance High School, Maniraguha Sylvere a.k.a Ndugu) who’d been doing exams while sick had just passed away at the nearby Nyacyonga Health Centre. This boy was alleged to have been suffering from malaria characterised by frequent diarrhoea and vomiting. Nevertheless he tried his best to persist and sit his examinations. For some papers he was even isolated from other students so as not to distract them with his numerous toilet visits. Despite all this perseverance, the constant vomiting and diarrhoea was making him too weak because of the excessive dehydration. The school and examination authorities should have seen that this boy was too sick and stopped him from continuing with his exams. The dilemma of our education system is that it is too examination oriented. One’s abilities are judged against one variable – a three hour examination after years in school. Once he/she fails the examination, that’s it. Therefore a sick student will be compelled to call on the remaining energies in his body to make the journey to the examination room even without having read for the exam. Even in other examination centres I have seen sick students painfully trying to do an examination. They know very well that the education system of the country will always judge them basing on their examination results without considering even for once the other factors that could have influenced those marks. A sick student doing exams is like one from a village school who has not had access to any textbook or laboratory apparatus doing the same examination with a colleague in an elite school like Riviera High School, Green Hills Academy or FAWE Girls’ School. Education policymakers should think of a way of overhauling the system so that students do not look at examinations as a matter of life and death. What else would compel a student to get off a hospital bed to a classroom bench, hence putting their life on the line? I believe a sick student should be allowed to pay more attention to his sickness than examinations. The pressure that most students experience is way too much to be combined with a failing health situation. The sickness requires them to get adequate medical attention, to feed well, get enough rest, plus love and care from loved ones or friends. On the other hand, the examinations demand that a student does lots of reading, discussions with friends, and also get some rest before examinations. Combining the demands of sickness with those of an examination is too much to ask. Another thing I observed about this year’s examinations was the separation of students so that at a given school you have S.3 or S.6 students only. The rest would be taken to do their examinations from another school. I was informed by a colleague that it was done so as to avoid problems that used to arise when students’ scripts would get mixed up. Although the intentions were really noble, this system had its negatives too. For example ferrying of students daily from their school to another was an inconvenience to the students as well as the administration of the school. School had to hire buses to ferry their students to and fro to beat the time. In other cases, students were permanently resettled in another school for the period of exams. These students had to try and adapt to a new environment in the shortest time possible. Students who were used to studying at night for hours because of availability of electricity were now to make-do with schools that had erratic power supply and water shortages - like Kabuga High School. Their reading patterns were interrupted by the urgency of adaptation. Maybe next year the examinational council will reconsider this whole plan especially after collecting views from other stakeholders like headteachers and students. To my deceased student, may his soul rest in eternal peace. ssenyonga@gmail.com