Ex-Shakawe students in sluggish response to exam re-sits
Gothataone Moeng | Friday April 25, 2014 12:52
Out of the 624 students who registered for the Botswana General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGCSE) last year, only 16 qualified to be accepted into tertiary institutions, the ministry has said.
The school registered the worst performance in the country, with a 7.48 percent pass rate, leading the Education ministry to extend the special dispensation allowing the students to register to re-sit their examinations later this year through the Botswana College of Distance and Open Learning (BOCODOL).
Almost a fortnight after the registration deadline, BOCODOL Public Relations and Marketing Manager, Bonny Bashe on Wednesday told Mmegi that 178 learners had registered under the dispensation across the institution’s centres countrywide.
“A good number of them registered at the Francistown and Maun centres,” Bashe said, although he explained that he did not have the numbers of learners registered at each centre.
Bashe said the total number may not be an accurate representation of the students who registered as some students could have registered with BOCODOL before the announcement of the special dispensation.
He also said there is a possibility of more numbers coming in from schools and Regional education centres, as the learners were encouraged to register at these facilities. However, according to Bashe, there is also the possibility that learners are just not interested in registering to re-sit the exams.
Residents of Shakawe have already registered their unhappiness with the Ministry’s decision to have students re-sit their examinations. The residents are on record as preferring area MP, Bagalatia Arone’s motion that students be allowed to repeat their Form 4 and Form 5 instead.
The Daily News reported that at an April 7th meeting with Arone, residents declared their unhappiness with the decision, and preferred that students should go back to school.
Arone’s motion requesting repeats instead of re-sits was defeated in Parliament’s last sitting with the MoESD arguing that it did not have the capacity to allow the students to repeat. At the time, assistant Education minister, Patrick Masimolole said schools in the area were already operating at full capacity, while Arone argued that it was unfair to expect the students to pass through distance learning when they had not done well through formal teaching methods.
Both Arone and the MoESD, however, agreed that the students were disadvantaged by circumstances beyond their control leading to their poor performance last year. Shakawe Senior students missed two terms during their Form Four studies due to delays in the completion of the school as well as fire incidents at Maun SSS, where were hosted while Shakawe was being completed.
The fire incidents meant that their host school was closed and the students sent back home. In January 2013, with the school finished and students expected to start classes, the students lost 29 school days due to a shortage of water.
Students also had to contend with an unconducive learning environment due to inadequate facilities such as science labs and an empty library, problems with the management of the school as well as illicit student-teacher relationships.
Presenting the ministry’s decision before Parliament last month, Masimolole said the ministry had taken steps to improve the teaching and learning environment at the school.
“Six teachers were suspended for the illicit/amorous student-teacher relations that we abhor as a ministry. School management was changed. Library books are being purchased. Repairs have been undertaken to fix water leakages which subsequently improve water reticulation in the school,” he said at the time.