History of Assessment in Swaziland

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History of Assessment in Swaziland Assessment practices are as old as the education system in Swaziland but these practices changed from time to time depending on the national educational aims and goals at any given point in time (Nsibandze, 2007). Formal education in Swaziland was introduced by the Methodist and Lutheran Missionary societies in the second half of the 19th century and the main educational aim of the missionary societies was to enable Swazis to read the Bible. Enabling Swazis to read the Bible was one way of promoting the spread of the Christian gospel. On the other hand, the colonial government also had its own aims and goals in educating Swazis and these aims were to develop a civilised character of Swazi children, promote health and family life of the Swazis and to produce semi-literate Swazis who would serve as clerks and secretaries in the colonial government offices. In order to achieve these goals, by 1916 in addition to missionary schools, there were eight schools that were now under colonial government control. But there was segregation in these schools as some were attended by whites and coloureds only, while others were attended by the aristocrat Swazis. Again, even the curriculum in these schools was not the same, whites and coloureds were taught a curriculum which was open ended in nature, as it allowed for the furtherance of their studies beyond primary education, while the Swazis were taught a curriculum which was had little room for furtherance beyond the primary level. Booth (2000) concurs that by the 1920s, it was now clear that Swaziland was adopting a discriminatory education system. Following the adoption of this system, Swaziland’s colonial state also followed a South African segregationist curriculum called the Joint Matriculation Board when the secondary education began in the 1940s (Pereira, 2012). The main type of

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