TANZANIA: A TOTAL of 759,573 registered candidates are expected to sit for Form Two National Assessment (FTNA) in mainland Tanzania today.
According to the National Examinations Council of Tanzania (NECTA) Executive Secretary, Dr Said Ally Mohamed, out of the number, some 353,807 are boys which represent 46.58 per cent and 405,766 girls estimated as 53.42 per cent.
Dr Mohamed told reporters recently that some 1,382 Form Two candidates have special needs, of which, 683 have low vision, 82 vision impairment, 290 with hearing impairment, 309 with physical impairment and 18 with intellectual impairments.
Elaborating, he noted that the national assessments will be conducted in 5,546 secondary schools in mainland Tanzania, adding that FTNA measures the ability and understanding of candidates in all that they learned during the two years of their Secondary studies.
In comparison to last year, Form Two candidates who sat for the national assessment were 690,341, which is an increase of 10 per cent.
The government has been making major reforms in education sector, which among others include providing fee free education from pre-primary school to Advanced Level of secondary education, recruiting a big number of teachers as well as reviewing the education policy of 2014 and curriculum.
During the implementation of Second Five-Year Development Plan (FYDP-II), the government increased the number of secondary schools' classrooms from 115,665 in 2015 to 136,292 in 2020.
The number of secondary schools increased from 4,708 in 2015 to 5,402 in 2020.
Recently, President Samia Suluhu Hassan assured that not a single student will miss an opportunity to join secondary school due to lack of classrooms.
She said the government has managed to construct a total of 8,000 fully furnished classrooms for secondary schools countrywide.
In less than two years of President Samia in office, the government surpassed the target of constructing classrooms for secondary schools by 198 per cent.
Moreover, Dr Mohamed said that all the preparations for the year 2023 FTNA have been completed, including the distribution of relevant exams, answer booklets and all-important documents related to these exams to all regions and councils in mainland Tanzania.
NECTA further directed all examination committees in regional and district level to ensure security is maintained in all centres as per guidelines given to the council. The council also instructed invigilators to abide by ethics as it calls upon the candidates to observe ethics and truthfulness.
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Dr Mohamed also said that school owners and principals are not required in any way to interfere with the duties of invigilators throughout the exam period, adding that the council will not hesitate to cancel any examination centre that endangers the safety of national examinations.
On the candidates' side, he said the council believes that teachers have prepared them well throughout two years of secondary education. Thus, it is the expectation of the council that students will take the exam under the examination rules.
"The council does not expect to see any student involved with fraudulent practices, and if any student is identified to commit fraud, his or her results will be cancelled according to examination regulations," he said.
NECTA called upon all stakeholders to report to the relevant bodies whenever they detect a person or group of people engaging in exam fraud.
