Š‹‰ŠŽ‹‰Š–• ͵ ˆƒ…–‘”•

MBABANE – The Swaziland Association of Schools Administrators (SASA) Secretary General Siphasha Dlamini says there are three factors contributing to the high number of failures in primary schools.

Firstly, Dlamini highlighted the shortage of educators in public schools. She stated that the teacher-to-pupil ratio was uneven.Dlamini said some of the teachers were teaching over 60 pupils in one class. The SG said it was not a secret that the teacher might not be able to give all the pupils the attention they deserved. For that reason, some pupils who would require special attention might be left behind, thus causing them to repeat the grade.

She proposed that government should introduce teacher’s assistants to assist teachers in order for learners to get the necessary academic help. Secondly, Dlamini noted that the publicising of external results had been a contributing factor. She said most schools would have a higher numbers of failures in Grade VI so that only the cream made it to Grade VII. She said this was common in schools that wanted to produce good results so that they maintained their record.

The SG noted that over the years, government tried to get rid of publicising the results. She said even though government tried to resolve this, the announcing of the top 10 list still contributed.

Attention

She added that another issue was that since government announced the FPE, parents no longer paid attention to their children’s schoolwork because they did not pay the school fees. In the same vein, she said some children were refusing to show parents their schoolwork.

“Some children have the nerve to tell their parents to leave them alone because they are not paying their school fees,” she said. Dlamini said children were becoming uncontrollable and there was a need to make them accountable for their studies.

Some noted the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to the compression of the academic year and automatic promotion of pupils, as well as the civil unrest. She added that since some pupils were automatically promoted, they proceeded to the next class while they were academically unfit.

“If you can look into the years 2020 and 2021, pupils were promoted resulting in a higher number of failures,” said Eswatini Schools Committees and Parents Association Secretary General (SG) Cyprian Dlamini.

The SG also noted that in some schools, most repeaters were in Grade VI because schools would want to produce good results in Grade VII.

On pupils who were made to repeat unnecessarily as per the other findings of the report, Dlamini said it was unfortunate that there were schools that made pupils repeat. He mentioned that as an association of school committees, most complaints about repetition of grades were common in high schools.

He said parents paid attention in high schools because they paid money. He said there weren’t much complaints coming from primary schools. He said there was a high possibility that parents were not paying much attention to primary school pupils because of FPE. He said inasmuch as that could be the case, it was piling pressure on government and delaying the children.

He noted that children were growing fast these days, which might lead to some pupils reaching some stages of their lives while still in lower grades.

Pregnant

Dlamini added that most girls, at the age of 14 to 15, would be fully developed, which could lead to them falling pregnant while still in primary school. This may make them not want to return to school, thus ruining their future.

Dlamini urged parents to scrutinise and follow the progress of their children in schools throughout the year so that they could be able to follow-up when they are made to repeat classes. “Schools should also work with government and parents to avoid wasting of resources,” he said.

The Principal Secretary (PS) in the Education Ministry Bhekithemba Gama stated that there were several interventions that had been conducted by the ministry to ensure that there were fewer failures in schools and further prevent unnecessary repeating of pupils.

He said the inspectors engaged schools that were seen to be making pupils to repeat unnecessarily. He noted the other factors of the findings were dealt with.