The National President of CIMG, Dr Daniel Kasser Tee, explained that it was critical students at that stage were given the best of tutorials to build their understanding of the course for examinations and help their post-qualification practice.

He was speaking in Accra on Tuesday during the announcement of the CIMG’s second Professional Marketing Qualification (PMQ) examination results.

 “It is our expectation that centres will assign their best tutors to courses at the foundation stage, as students at that level require a firm grasp of key principles of marketing, on which they will build for the rest of the course, and of course, during their post-qualification practice,” he stated.

The June 2022 examination, which was taken by 289 candidates, he said, saw a low average pass rate of 22 per cent in the foundation stage.

However, from the 15 courses, Dr Tee noted, a high pass rate was achieved in 13 of the subjects.

“The poor performances, not surprising, were at the foundation stage, where students largely have no work experiences, and this affected fundamentals of marketing and buyer behaviour at the entry level, with an average pass rate of 22 per cent,” he stated.

He said although the 22 per cent in the foundation courses was an improvement from the December 2021 examination, where the average pass rate for the same two subjects was 16 per cent, the accredited institutions must do more to ensure results in that stage were enhanced.

With the exception of the foundation level papers, performances at the applied marketing skills and strategic professional marketing levels, he said, recorded 100 per cent pass rate in some cases.

He called on the accredited institutions to examine the level of preparedness of prospective students for the foundation courses before enrolment, as they formed the bedrock upon which excellent professional marketers were developed.

The CIMG, Dr Tee said, was continuously engaging all the accredited institutions to collectively agree on ways to fine-tune the mode of delivery and the calibre of tutors selected for the courses where students performed poorly.

 The examination, he noted, was excellent, with audit and quality assurances from the question setting stage through to moderations.

 “All the processes for delivery of scripts to markers, moderation and evaluation of marked scripts, among others, were excellently done under strict security and confidentiality,” Dr Tee said.

Dr Francis Mensah Sasraku, Chief Examiner, said the examinations were categorised into five levels; the first level comprising Fundamentals of Marketing, Buyer Behaviour, Business Law and Ethics.