IT'S A SYSTEM FAILURE
The need for psycho educational assessments in Botswana to detect learning disabilities, as well as other mental health issues that interfere with learning is overwhelming.
Psycho educational assessments identify learning challenges in students of all ages, from young children to adults for the purposes of academic and career planning.
Dr Sophie Moagi of Legato Centre for Psychometric Assessment, is concerned that the current approach to psych-eds, as they refer to them, is misdirected, particularly from public schools where such assessments are perceived as a tool that is used for access rights to national examinations through the Botswana Examinations Council.
“It shouldn’t be like that. We shouldn’t assess the child only for us to get access rights including, extra time, teacher aids, among others, during exams. Assessments should be done from the beginning to identify learning strengths, capabilities and a learning profile of a child, so that we are able to determine the best way a child learns,” Dr Moagi said, adding that if done only for examinations, it defeats the purpose.
Assessments determine the limitations of a child so that they are addressed earlier. When children start school, either at Standard One or Two and even earlier, teachers and parents could notice that, for example, the child is lagging behind in comparison to their peers, and seek help for them.
This assessment would therefore go a long way in enhancing the child’s learning capability going forward.
Following a psycho educational assessment, an individualised educational plan suitable for the child’s specific learning needs would be devised. Sadly, Botswana has a one-size-fits all curriculum that all children, despite
their capabilities, are expected to follow. But the truth is that not everyone will fit in the curriculum.
Because of the lack of resources and lack of information on the part of parents, many children in the education system have never had an opportunity to be assessed and assisted, yet they need to be examined.
This often results in a child achieving below his or her potential. For example, a child with capability of an A grade but because of weaknesses that draw them back, which have not been identified, the child operates at a C or D grades.
“This is so sad. It limits opportunities for the child in the future, where such a child would go for tertiary education and what courses they would pursue,” Dr Moagi said.
Another disheartening fact is that in most public schools that have special needs classes, all children -with autism, hyperactivity, anxiety and many other conditions - are placed in one class without categorising them according to their individual needs. In such a situation, little or no intervention is made to assist each one of them.
In more specialised schools on the other hand, such children are categorised according to their needs and given appropriate interventions.
Dr Moagi is often inspired in her line of work, when she recalls one of the most brilliant minds ever to have lived, Albert Einstein who coined the saying that “if you take a fish and put it on a tree, you will think that it is stupid, while in fact a tree is not the perfect environment for it to thrive.” She believes this is true for the current education system and the curriculum.
In their psycho educational assessments, Legato Centre measures the child’s cognitive ability and performance in achievement in three primary areas of learning - reading, writing and mathematics.
For example, for an average student in cognitive and intellectual ability, you expect that at a minimum, their performance in achievement would also be average, but in a lot of cases, you would find that children perform above average.
“This is good because it is indicative that the child has all support needed to help them achieve. Maybe in such cases parents help at home or engage a tutor or maybe the school employs extra lessons,” she said.
However, Dr Moagi observed that the problem comes when the child has the ability but in terms of achievement, performs below their level of ability. She explained that this does not mean that a child has a learning disability like most people would assume.
It could be that intellectually the child has cognitive deficit and therefore cannot be expected to perform at average.
Where there is a learning disability, there is cognitive ability but there is a gap that causes the child to perform low. “This is where an assessment comes in to identify the gaps and deficits, and find out what could be attributable to the gaps.
“We would be able to determine whether the problem emanates from comprehension, working memory, attentiveness, anxiety disorder, hyperactive disorder, problems at home and psychological distress anxiety among others”.
Legato Center uses a Battery Assessment that measures Cognitive Ability, Achievement, screening for brain functioning, that is neuropsychology – to see whether learning disabilities are caused by the functional ability of the brain.
They also measure Socio-emotional functioning. Dr Moagi said in all these tests, parents would be present to help with background information about the child.
There are factors that could contribute to the state of the child including, whether there were complications during pregnancy, labour and whether the child lacked oxygen during birth among others.
“We need to know whether the child’s eye sight is in good conditions because sometimes we can assume that a child does not know how to read, while they actually cannot see. The same with hearing,” she explains.
The school’s view and input is also critical because the child spends most of the day at school. In fact, Dr Moagi said information from the school about the child is a lot more reliable than from parents, because parents tend
to protect their child without realising that they are actually not helping.
Dr Moagi says children with different learning disabilities can thrive, relate well with their environment and function optimally in life when necessary support is availed.
She is aware that many parents find themselves in a difficult position because of societal pressure. She says parents have anxiety for academic performance of their children, but may not be doing all that is necessary to ensure that their children perform according to their potential.
Dr Moagi says the best thing to do is to get children support to enhance their capability. She is quick however, to also note that it is important for parents not to only focus on academics only but to explore other areas that their children could thrive in.
She is happy that government acknowledges this and has made efforts to ensure that no child is left behind. Government has begun rolling out multiple pathways of the Technical and Vocational Education and Training strategy in some public schools that students can have an option to enrol in.
In Moeng College, students will have an opportunity to pursue horticulture, in Maun senior secondary - Tourism and Mogoditshane Senior secondary - Sports.
Legato Centre gets referrals from schools and parents contact them directly, and in some instances government engages them through the Central Resource Centre (CRC) in Tlokweng. On an annual basis they receive over 1000 students in need of assessments.
She warns against engagement of unqualified Assessors, noting that some parents and schools engage people who are not qualified enough to carry out educational assessments that can be recognised by examining bodies like Cambridge.
“This is very unethical people are often engaged to carry out such assessments at costs of around P100 or P200. These in the end do not help the child nor the parents,” Dr Moagi said. She is hoping that there will be enough oversight in the profession to guard against such unscrupulous people.