Grade twelve national examination assessments practices for learners with visual impairments in selected schools in Mwense and Lusaka districts, Zambia
Date
2019
Authors
Ndume, Muyoma Sarah
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The University of Zambia
Abstract
The study aimed at examining the practices at grade twelve level with respect to learners with visual impairments. The sample was drawn from Mwense and Lusaka districts of Zambia. The study was guided by the following objectives: to establish the current practices of the grade twelve national examination assessment for learners with visual impairments in selected schools of Mwense and Lusaka districts, Zambia, to ascertain the factors that affected the current practices in the grade twelve national examination assessment for learners with visual impairments and to determine the measures which should be taken to improve the grade twelve national examination assessment for learners with visual impairments. The study was qualitative and a case study design was used. The study comprised twenty-two respondents consisting of four pupils, six school leavers, and six school specialist teachers, two school head teachers, two ESO in charge of special education and two officials from the Examination Council of Zambia (ECZ). Semi- structured interviews were used to collect data. Thematic analysis was used to analyse data based on the themes that emerged in the study.
The study findings revealed that learners who were totally blind wrote their examinations using braille format and enlarged print was used for those learners who were partially sighted. The findings of study also showed that the examination questions were modified into a descriptive form and by doing so learners were able to access the examinations. The study further revealed that learners were given extra time during the examinations, although this was not adequate. It was equally revealed that there were no special provisions that were considered when marking examination scripts for the visually impaired learners meaning that their scripts were marked just like other scripts for learners without sight challenges. Additionally, the study found out that at times the visually impaired learners did not benefit from the way the examinations were administered because the modified papers were sometimes not distributed to the schools; hence the learners were subjected to write examinations that were designed for the sighted learners after the invigilators read loudly the questions for them.
On the measures which should be taken to improve the grade twelve national examination assessments, the respondents suggested that the visually impaired learners should be allowed to use computers during the final examinations and that equipment such as Perkins brailler should be fixed in time before the commencement of the examinations. On the whole, the study revealed that there were a lot of inconsistencies in the way the examinations for visually impaired were handled. Based on the findings, it was recommended that the Examination Council of Zambia should come up with a marking centre where the scripts for the visually impaired could be marked to solve the problem of missing results among others.
Keywords: Visual Impairment, Assessment, National Examination, practices
Description
Thesis
Keywords
Blind--Education--Zambia , Examinations--Blind students--Zambia