Grade 8 marks lowered, say officers

 THE bar had been lowered by 10% to allow for more Grade 8 students to continue onto Grade 9 in Morobe.

The measurement services unit of the Department of Education had placed the mark at 75% or better.

But the provincial education division dropped the standard to 65, officers from the division of education said last Friday.

They said that in the province, 7,261 pupils sat for the national examination and only 1,716 scored the requirement or better while 5,545 failed.

The lowering of the level allowed another 1,343 to make it, taking the total of students who passed to 3,163 while 4,204 failed.

The general performance by the students during final examination in each subjects indicated that in mathematics, the performance was very low and poor within two years. 

The language (English) papers were also written poorly.

The officers said the cut off mark would also be further lowered in the districts depending on the availability of space.

Among the factors contributing to the poor performance by the students was frequent teacher absenteeism.

Others were lack of curriculum materials, lack of parents and community support, lack of teacher in-service training and inspection by authorities and parents’ failure to discipline children.

The officers did not say anything about the extra-curricular activities of students.