Ngcoseni Community School planning honey project
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NGCOSENI – A school blessed with innovative minds. Academically, there may still be a lot of room for improvement, but Ngcoseni Community School, situated in Mankayane under the Manzini Region, is a very unique and special school.
Unlike most local schools, this learning facility has a number of projects that have made a lot of people to sit up and take notice.
The Head teacher Mduduzi Dlamini made these projects known to Minister of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) Savannah Maziya, during her visit to the school last week Friday.
Dlamini proudly informed the minister that apart from owning dairy cows and goats, the school was in the process of starting a honey project, as part of its initiative to raise development funds for the school.
He said these projects were part of the school’s pre-vocational programme, that seeks to empower the learners at a very tender age on the many ways to make a living without really putting too much concentration on job opportunities.
Business - minded
Dlamini also told the minister that some pupils in the school were already business-minded, as they were running a tuck shop within the premises.
He said this business had been running for a while now, and had proven to be beneficial, as it was helping the learners understand the dynamics of running a business, especially the challenges and benefits that come with it.
“I am very proud to inform you minister that our school has five cows and goats, as part of our pre-vocational programme for the learners. We are now in the process of adding a honey project as part of this programme. I can also report that learners at our school are running tuck shop business, which is meant to empower them on how to run a business,” Dlamini told the Minister and the invited guests.
The head teacher also reported that as a school, they were concerned about the pregnancy rate, admitting that it was one of the biggest challenges for the school.
“I can share an incident where we had a Form V pupil who fell pregnant but was allowed back in class to complete her lessons and even passed. So, we do have those cases in the school and it must be noted that we do engage their parents from time-to-time, to engage them on such issues,” he said.
The head-teacher also informed the minister and her guests, that during the COVID-19 period, a Form III pupil came back pregnant, but was allowed to write the examination and passed with flying colours despite being pregnant.
Dlamini then reported that the school was in need of teachers’ recruitment, as a matter of urgency, pointing out that currently, they were facing a serious shortage of teaching staff. He highlighted that some of the affected subjects in this aspect are Mathematics and Science.
Improvement
“There is obviously a lot of room for improvement academically, in our school based on the recent results and we will work very hard to change that for the better. One of the challenges we are facing is the shortage of teachers especially for critical subjects like Mathematics and Science. There is no doubt that if we can have those positions filled up, it would make a whole lot of difference for the school academically,” Dlamini said.
He then praised government for the early release of orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) grants, pointing out that this had a positive impact during the opening of schools, some days ago.
Noteworthy, for the first time in many years, Ngcoseni Central High recorded the worst Junior Certificate (JC) results with a high number of failures, which stood at 166. Most of the teachers, who were interviewed at the time, blamed the poor results on the alleged chaotic situation, which was caused by pupils allegedly addicted to drugs, mainly dagga.
This is also the same school where in 2017, the pupils claimed that sexy teachers in miniskirts who exposed cleavages through their low-cut garments, is what they claimed contributed to their poor performance in the 2016 JC examinations.
Majority
In the school’s Form III class of 2015, a total of 94 pupils failed, but 78 of them came back to repeat. However, they were separated from the group that came from Form II, as they learnt in two classrooms.
However, this did not seem to assist much as again in 2016, a majority of the pupils failed.
During the tour by Minister Maziya, at the school, she was taken to some classrooms including computer laboratory where the minister emphasised that more learners should be taught computer lessons.
The minister also took time to observe other projects initiated by the school and had a chance to interact with the teachers and pupils.