Congestion at Artesia Secondary School?

BABOKI KAYAWE
Staff Writer | Thursday January 19, 2012 00:00

These students who graduated to junior secondary studies had found themselves in an ugly situation as there were no places for continuing their studies.

They were later sent to an already congested Artesia CJSS, a source has revealed. Sources close to the crisis said classes now exceed the capacity of 40 students per teacher as required by the Ministry of Education and Skills Development.

'There is a serious crisis here because now classes have as many as 48 students per teacher and there is no way quality education can be transmitted under such situations,' the source said. This is going to affect the schools' pass rate negatively, the source said. The school had a 48 percent pass rate in the 2011 Junior Certificate Examinations. Moreover, the hostel was not in a good position to absorb additional students because it already exceeded its capacity of 270 people. 'Students have been sharing beds, so with the coming of other students the situation is going from bad to worse,' the source said. However, the school head Khan Masau said there was no crisis in his school. He said he knows of only 35 students who were admitted at Limpu Junior Secondary School, next to CKGR that were sent to Artesia because there were no places there.

'While it is true that we have been admitting students from the two villages and a decision was made to stop that this year, I don't know of the overflowing incident you are talking about,' he said adding that the regional education director would comment better on the matter.

He said it was not true that classes had a maximum of 48 students, and he also clarified that there was no shortage of accommodation at the school hostel. 'There might be a crisis in Kweneng hence these students were sent back here,' Masau said.

He said before the additional batch was absorbed the school had 113 Form One students and only four streams, and the new development made them five.

Meanwhile, Mmegi could not reach the Kgatleng education director, Bontle Mojaphoko because she was in a meeting.