Ethiopian Somali Regional State

College of Management and Public Service

Department of Accounting and Finance

Date: 11/07/09 E.C.

To: The Office of Deputy Manager

From: Department of Accounting and Finance

Subject: Investigative report on why department’s level III students who has taken COC
failed on their exam.

As we have informed on the pervious academic committee meeting, students who have been sit
for the COC exam for level III program almost more than 94% of them have failed. The result
was sent by the regional COC agency to our college and the college has immediately called an
academic committee meeting in order to discuss why the majority of the students who sat in the
exam failed.

The meeting was chaired and conducted by the deputy manager of the college and the other
attendants were department heads. In the meeting the causes for students failure has been
mentioned especially general causes were mentioned by department heads and also the chair
person of the meeting (the deputy manager). However, not all causes were mentioned by the
meeting participants, due to this the deputy manager has ordered each departments to conduct an
investigative report on students failurity on their respective department and submit the report as
soon as possible by Monday (11/07/09 E.C.)

After our department has received the order to investigate what were the causes that contribute to
students’ failurity in their COC examination. The department has conducted the investigation
from various directions in order to point out where can be the main factors which can cause
students fail in their exam. The following teaching learning processes have been identified as the
main areas of our investigation:
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  The curriculum which the department is using at present time
 The units of competencies students are learning
 The department’s mode of assessment in measuring students performance
 Teachers teaching preparation
 Students’ capacity and readiness to learn.

I. The curriculum the department is using

The curriculum our department is using is the new curriculum that is almost used by other
regions’ government and private colleges. The curriculum currently we are using was initially
developed and used by all colleges of the country including our college since 2007 E.C.. The
curriculum is derived from the Ethiopian Occupation Standard(EOS) which was implemented in
August 2012G.C. our department uses the EOS in order to develop the appropriate curriculum
and have one and we are using the curriculum for level III program with the Occupation title
Accounts and Budget Support III.

II. The Units of Competencies students are learning

All the unities of competencies included in the curriculum are included when the curriculum is
prepared since the curriculum is designed and developed by referring the EOS for the
Occupation .Here the problem was when the TTLM was prepared all the elements or contents the
units of competencies were not included. To solve the problem the department has made the
revision on the pervious modules and has selected the modules which need total revision and
made the revision and adjusted the problem and now the majority of the units of competencies
TTLMs are correctly prepared. The learning outcomes of each units of competency are included
in each learning modules.

III. The department’s Mode of Assessment in measuring students performance

Our department’s mode of assessment in measuring the performance of our students is the
traditional way summative evaluation method. That is students performance is measured after the
completion of the unit of competency. And exams are prepared in objective type questions which
only measures the theoretical aspect of the teaching learning process which do not measure

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students reasoning aspect of a given unites of competency. Teachers do use a formative
assessment technique in order to measure students’ performance after they have finished each
learning outcome of the unit. Because of this the teachers’ only conduct summative evaluation
that only measures how students accomplish the unit of competencies at the end of the day. This
form of evaluation method does not measure students’ performance in each learning outcomes.
The reason why teachers can not conduct the formative evaluation first they don’t have enough
time to conduct such kind of evaluation. Second the number of students in each class is too large
and this can make the formative evaluation method to be difficult in such circumstance to the
teachers.

IV. Teachers’ Teaching Preparation

It is difficult to say all teachers of the department can properly prepare in advance before they
come to the college compound. The teaching process needs to start with the preparation of the
Session or lesson plan, the preparation of the teaching learning materials and the non-curricular
activities. However, only a few teachers are involved and also now are involving in the teaching
learning processes of the department. Almost the majorities of the department’s teachers don’t
prepare their session plan and do not participate in the preparation of the teaching learning
material of the department. But there are some teachers who always prepare their session plan
and also committed themselves to help the department and their students with their maximum
effort even though the college did not give them recognition to their dedication to their
respective department. What is worst is some teachers even don’t know the curriculum and its
elements and they don’t know how they should have to conduct their teaching learning process
in a TVET programs. Such teachers need some kind of workshop in order to make them familiar
with TVET programs. in addition to this some teachers have the habit only teach
the learning outcomes which they understand and jump the learning
outcome which difficult to them understand and teach. These are issues
most commonly happend in regard to the teachers of the department
teachnig preparation.

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 V. Students Capacity and Readiness to learn

To our knowledge and experience students who are joined and still joining TVET programs are
those who have failed grade 10 national leaving certificate. The problem we have been facing
since the TVET program started in our country was the capacity of students to the program and
perception of students towards the TVET program was totally wrong. However, their perception
has changed now a day but their capacity in learning the program is still the major challenge to
the program providers like our college. Some of the students who join our college even they
don’t know about the basics like how to write their name and generally their personal
information while they are registering. In addition to this some of the students not only they
don’t know the basics but also even they don’t have interest and readiness to learn the program
they have joined. Only they come to the college to accompany their friends and some come to
the college to chat with their friends. Simply such student they don’t know their purpose why
they come to the college. Simply they are guests of the college.

Finally, what we have mentioned above and other factors which is not included in this
investigative report might be the actual causes for our students failurity in their COC exam. For
future it is better to the department and the college in general in order to address the above root
causes and other factors to make the teaching learning process at least to its standards and
provide students the chance to benefit form it.

NB: The EOS, the curriculum and the units of competencies and each learningg outcomes of the
units after this report will be attached with this short report.

The department

Adem Mohammed

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CC: Education Core Process Owner