RUSH FOR SPACES: MOST URBAN SCHOOLS ALREADY FULL

MANZINI – As the mad rush for spaces begins, most urban schools are already full.

Subsequent to the release of the external results for both the Eswatini Primary Certificate (EPC) and Junior Certificate (JC) on Wednesday, by the Minister of Education and Training, Lady Mabuza, parents flooded schools seeking spaces for their children. This is because Grade VII and Form III are completing classes in their curriculum; hence pupils seek to enrol in the best performing schools or those located in urban areas, as they are deemed to have adequate infrastructure. In light of this, a large number of the best performing schools in towns are flooded with learners and their guardians, who are seeking spaces for them. This publication engaged head teachers of urban schools, seeking to establish if they had spaces to accept learners who were seeking enrolment.

Admission

According to some of the head teachers of prominent and best performing schools in the Hhohho, Lubombo, Manzini and Shiselweni regions, they completed the admission processes for Form I and IV in November 2022. A majority of the head teachers said they had conducted interviews for these classes in order to admit prospective pupils around October 2022. Albert Sihlongonyane, the Head teacher of St Theresa’s High School, which is one of the best performing schools and with learners in the Top 50, said there were no spaces in Form I and IV as the admission process was completed towards the end of 2022.

However, he was quick to mention that there could be few spaces available after the registration exercise, which would be done on Monday. This, he said, was because usually, some of the pupils they had admitted did not show up for registration, supposedly because they had opted to register with other schools. “Due to this, we end up having one or two spaces available after the registration process,” Sihlongonyane said. Also, Salesian High School Head teacher Petros Horton, said even though they had completed admitting pupils last year, few spaces might be available in Form I.
Horton said there were none in Form IV because they now had two streams due to the introduction of the four-year compressed syllabus for high schools. He said some pupils no longer wrote JC.

Filled

Manzini Nazarene High School Head teacher Phindile Makhanya, on the other hand, said on paper, they had already filled all spaces in the two classes. Like the other head teachers, Makhanya said this was done towards the end of last year. However, she said they would conduct the practical admission and registration on Monday and that would be when they would know if all those who were admitted were still interested in taking up the spaces. Even if those who had been admitted did not show up, she said, there would still be limited spaces available.

Meanwhile, the Head teacher of Hillside High School, Mcebo Mwelase, said he was currently attending to learners who had applied for spaces and were admitted in 2022.  Mwelase said as a school, they were optimistic that there would be limited spaces available and once determined, they would then start to entertain walk-in applicants. He supposed that this could be from Tuesday, after the completion of the  registration process for those who were admitted last year.

Limited

Also, the Head teacher of Mpaka High School, Mfanizile Bhembe, said the school had limited spaces for non-commuting learners (boarders), as most of the admissions for this academic year were done last year. The school which, had an 86 per cent pass rate, according to Bhembe, had limited spaces for the other classes also for learners who were strictly set to reside in their boarding facility.

On the other hand, Manzini Central High School Head teacher Celucolo Dlamini, said they would start admitting today at 9am and were anticipating taking about 120 pupils in Form I, as they had three streams of classes. In Form IV, the head teacher said they would admit only 30 pupils. He added that almost all the Form III pupils had passed and there would be limited spaces. Mjingo High School Deputy Head teacher Mbhekile Khumalo, who was speaking on behalf of the administration, said they would also start admitting pupils in Form I and IV at 9am. He said they had about 110 available spaces for both classes. 

Available

The administration of Lamawandla High School said admissions for Form I were completed in November last year and available spaces would be determined by the number of their learners who had passed JC. Khumalo said this would be done when schools open and it was most likely that there would be no admissions to Form IV, as there were 120 who passed Form III, which was basically three classes. In the Lubombo Region, this publication gathered that schools in Siteki and surrounding areas completed admissions to Form I last year. Siteki Nazarene High School, which produced the top performing JC pupil in the 2022 results, completed admitting for Form I in 2022. The school’s Head teacher, Bonginkosi Dlamini, said they turned away about 500 pupils after meeting the admission quota of 150 pupils.

The head teacher said next week, the school would be registering the admitted pupils and monitoring if some had chosen to attend to other schools. He said they had some of the pupils on a waiting list, that would be considered if it was established that some of those who had shown interest in enrolling with them last year had secured spaces in other schools.  “We almost turned back 500 pupils last year and only admitted 150,” he said.

Monitor

At Lubombo Central High School, his counterpart Pilate Vilane, said they also completed the admission exercise in 2022. Vilane said 120 learners were admitted; but they would monitor if all those who had shown interest would register next week.“We are now registering those we admitted and if some don’t show up, then those on our waiting list would be next,” he said. On the other hand, the Office of the Lubombo Regional Education Officer (REO) Richard Dlamini was a hive of activity yesterday, as head teachers of primary and high schools in the region came in numbers to collect results transcripts for pupils.

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