09 Feb 2015

Mogoditshane MP, Mr Sedirwa Kgoroba wants government to abolish automatic promotion from primary to secondary school.

Allowing students to proceed having failed examinations, he said, would become strenuous on a child as some were unable to cope with the next level, which might be costly to the government in the long run.

MP Kgoroba’s bone of contention was that when students were allowed to move into the next level that was slightly higher without having fully grasped the basics, it might be detrimental to the child’s learning because they would not be able to cope with the next level.

He said there had been instances where a student at a higher level could not do basics expected of them because their cognitive uptake was still at primary school level.

He said that could cause low confidence levels and therefore poor performance on the part of the student hence a loss on the part of government, the parent or the guardian.

The legislator said education inculcates a certain work ethic in a nation and when students are allowed to automatically proceed into the next level without having passed the preceding level then it breeds poor work ethic in the child since they know that they will proceed anyway even if they do not study hard.

He said that these are basics that could be the reason why the nation has poor work ethic.

“For us to taste excellence and overcome challenges as a nation we need to have competition which begins at a younger age with education, let us not agree that it is ok to allow children to automatically proceed to the next when they have failed because it breeds wrong mentality,” he said.

He said it is costly for government to give 10 year basic automatic education promotion to children and yet the students leave empty handed.

“School teaches everything, it inculcates a certain culture in us, work ethic and therefore students must not pass to the next level if they have failed, they must compete because the global world is competitive and school prepares them for that,” he said. ENDS