MINISTER READS RIOT ACT TO HEAD TEACHERS

MBABANE – Minister of Education and Training Lady Mabuza yesterday read the Riot Act to head teachers who do not allow failures to repeat.
She minced no words as she clearly stated that each school which had failures be it in Grade VII or Form III should again allow those pupils to repeat the class.

She said there was a tendency by some head teachers of not allowing the failed pupils into the same class and would in some instances tell them to move to other schools.

Example

“In some instances the teachers send the pupils a class back; for example back to Form II or Grade VI, which is unacceptable,” said Mabuza.
She said it was that schools responsibility to educate the child again in order for them to pass and then move on to the next grade.
“If you send the child to another school, who are you expecting to do the work for you?” wondered the minister.

She said she, therefore,  expected that all head teachers to allow the pupils to repeat the classes they had failed in the same school.
The school with the highest number of failures was Ngwane Central High, which had 78 failures, followed by Ngcoseni Central High School with 62. 

On the issue of teachers who did not accept pupils with Third Class passes, she advised that parents should report these schools at the respective regional educational offices (REOs).
She said it was actually what made a teacher feel good to be able to educate a child who had attained a Third Class pass and make them get better grades in future.

“The role of a teacher is to educate a child so that they can become the best they can be,” said Mabuza.
She said the reason all pupils had to be accepted was to close gaps in the schools and to avoid leading children to drop out of school.
She said as a result, the REOs needed to be vigilant in these instances.

Meanwhile, the minister said they had not received any reports of head teachers who sold spaces in schools.
This was after she was asked by the media what was being done to head teachers who wanted to be bribed in order to offer spaces.

“We haven’t heard of any such corrupt practices and we strongly warn teachers against it because if they are found to be corrupt, we will definitely report them to the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC),” said Mabuza. 

                  
Different

On a different note, Mabuza said there was no need to have a Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) representative during the announcement of the results.

“We have many stakeholders, but we have always presented them (the results) like this,” she said.
Mabuza was responding to a question posed by one of the members of the media on the absence of a SNAT representative.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: