09 Feb 2015

Lack of parental involvement in student’s academic work contributes to poor performance.

Pastor Moffat Seloka of Assemblies of God in Hukuntsi told Mosiiwa Primary School PTA general meeting that teachers were working hard to produce the best results, while parents had become spectators.

He said the school management had made efforts to encourage parents to visit the school but parents had failed to do so. “As stakeholders, parents should take a leading role in pupils’ academic work and desist from the idea that teachers should do their work because they are paid,” he added.

Again, he said parents showed no interest in helping students with assignments, adding that the parents’ conduct showed lack of focus and understanding on the importance of education.

Pastor Seloka also told parents that they should bring up their children under  Setswana tenets of botho and respect to make work easy for teachers because the gross misconduct in schools was due to improper up bring.

He encouraged parents to provide the necessary basic needs to their children, love and support them at all times. Moreover, he said the school management should engage other stakeholders such as religious groups in an endeavour to improve Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE) results.

For her part, the school head teacher, Ms Olivia Ditshetelo said they had set targets from reception to standard seven classes, adding that only if parents could support them, their 85 per cent target for standard seven would be a realised.

More strategies had been put in place to improve PSLE results such as giving more assignments to students, formulation of leaners groups, using past examination papers to argument learning and weekend lessons, she said.

However, she noted that parents did not pay development fees and that made it hard for the school to implement major projects aimed at helping student’s academic performance. ENDS