All the pupils in Grade 10 and 11 failed

No lessons this year after Education Department ruling

MORE than 200 pupils at a Transkei school are yet to start their lessons this year because teachers are still marking their supplementary exam papers.

The school term officially started on January 21. But instead of giving lessons, teachers at Welsh Senior Secondary School in the rural Mbentse area of Qumbu are still busy with last year’s final exams. The school produced poor results last year.

All the pupils in Grade 10 and 11 failed their exams but teachers decided to promote all of them to the next level.

However, two weeks into the first term, the Education Department intervened and ordered that they all re-write examinations from February 15 to February 27.

Grade 10 and 11 pupils are confused about which grade they are actually in as they have not received results telling them whether they have passed or failed. Out of the Grade 12 class, only four of the 32 pupils passed their final exams.

When a Daily Dispatch team arrived at the school at about 9am on Tuesday, some teachers were busy marking scripts while others were preparing end-of- year results, which they said would be released soon. Both teachers and pupils expressed frustration at the situation which, they said, disrupts the culture of learning and teaching.

The teachers are yet to start preparing for this year’s class work. Pupils in full school uniform were loitering outside the classes unattended, others playing on the sports grounds, while the rest were already heading home.

“Right now we don’t know whether we are going to Grade 12 or whether we will have to repeat Grade 11,” said 18-year-old Yamkela Mpusi. Anathi Mnango, 18, said:

“After finishing the February exams, we have been going to school but returning without a clue of when we would get our results before we could register.”

Teachers, who asked to remain anonymous, said the trouble started when the department forced them to reverse their decision to promote the failed pupils. Chairperson of Welsh School governing body Casswell Mlinjana also blamed the department for forcing pupils to re-write their final exams instead of allowing them to continue to senior classes.

“The department should have accepted that the pupils have been promoted and allow them to continue in their next classes,” he said. Prior to the final exams, the pupils boycotted lessons for three weeks, demanding that their school fees be refunded.

They blamed the strike for their bad performance. “We paid R330 school fees in January last year. Then in October the principal told us that our school is (a) non-fee school.

“The strike ended after teachers refunded all the pupils,” said Yandisa Rana, a Grade 12 learner who is also the secretary of the Congress of South African Students in the OR Tambo region.

Department of Education spokesperson Malibongwe Mtima said lessons should have started on the first day of the first school term. The department was investigating why there had not been teaching at the school. “

We also want to assure the students that they will be assisted to catch up with the lost time,” said Mtima.