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REVEALED: WHY PUPILS FAIL SISWATI

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MBABANE – The main reason pupils fail SiSwati is negative attitudes of teachers and parents.
Senior Inspector for SiSwati Celiwe Mohammed said this yesterday.


Her preliminary analysis of the results was that the pupils performed quite well as the language was passed by over 90 per cent of the candidates.
Mohammed said she was aware of the news that some pupils had not written anything on their scripts but said this was subject to verification. “I am yet to meet with my colleagues and the markers to understand what exactly was going on there based on what they came across on pupils’ scripts.”


She insisted that there was enough time for pupils to learn because the decision to enforce the SiSwati policy was taken early in 2018, just when lessons began. “We also gave ourselves time to go around the schools, especially the private schools where we tried to find out what challenges they could have regarding this and we shared tips on how best this subject could be taught.”


Teachers


She said she realised that some private schools deliberately delayed the teaching of the subject for reasons unknown to her.
Mohammed said: “I checked one particular school (known to this publication) in June, only to find that the teacher had not started the SiSwati lessons. The excuse she gave was that she did not know where to start.”


When asked if it was easy for foreign pupils to learn the language, Mohammed responded to the affirmative.
She said the reason it appeared difficult was the attitude that some parents and teachers had towards the language. “Some parents are quick to say their children will not be able to learn the language and some teachers do the same.”


She said she personally taught SiSwati at Ndzevane Primary School where over half the children were foreigners. “The foreign pupils performed exceptionally well when compared to some locals. It was a similar case when I went to Baha’i Primary School.”


When making this example, she was trying to drive the point that it was possible for non-Swati pupils to learn and master the language. Mohammed said it was a similar case when locals went to some schools outside the country; they were made to learn and master that country’s language.


Worried


She said she became worried when she learned how some private schools reacted to the issue of SiSwati and promised to pay those schools a visit when she returned from the trip she was undertaking.


Mohammed said in some private schools she noted that the management hired ordinary emaSwati to teach SiSwati yet this was not the proper way to do it. “Being a liSwati does not mean you can teach SiSwati. I even made a recommendation to those schools that they hired qualified teachers of the language in order to yield positive results,” she said.


President of the Swaziland Principals Association (SWAPA) Welcome Mhlanga said they were aware of the attitudes. “Not only teachers and parents had a negative attitude towards this move, but also most of the pupils.”
He said the cause was the fact that the policy implementation found some pupils already at an advanced stage and without the SiSwati base.


Implement


“Imagine a pupil who has never learned SiSwati from Grade I, having to learn it and sit for an external examination on it. It was a good move for government to dust the policy and implement it, but it could have been done gradually starting from the lower primary school grades.”


Mhlanga said it was a pity that most schools took advantage of government’s laxity on monitoring the policy and decided to make the subject optional alongside French and Portuguese. “This did not only affect foreign pupils, but also locals because some emaSwati pupils chose languages like French and Portuguese and had never learned SiSwati before.”


He said they were hopeful that the next batch of pupils would perform better than this one, which was the first after the full enforcement of the policy.
A summary of the subjects ranking made by the Examinations Council of Eswatini reflects that only 41 pupils obtained an A mark in SiSwati while 2 553 failed.
French was the lead language with a pass percentage of 99.05 while English followed with a pass percentage of 91.26. Portuguese did not feature in the ranking even though some primary schools taught it.

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