26 Sep 2019

The enrolment of students in the South East District is falling short of the desired capacity in most of the schools.

The low enrolment is recorded at primary schools to junior secondary schools and secondary schools.

The district development committee report has stated that all primary schools were undersubscribed except for Mafitlhakgosi in Tlokweng and St Joseph’s Primary Schools in Kgale.

In the junior secondary school category, only Tlokweng’s Matlala and Tlokweng JSS are oversubscribed while the rest are under-subscribed.

 As for senior schools, St Joseph’s College is the only oversubscribed school while Kagiso SSS and Moeding College are under-subscribed.

“The senior school category is the worst affected as the region has the capacity to enroll 4 960, but has only managed to have 4 000 pupils,” stated the report.

The under subscription of schools, particularly senior schools, has been a thorny issue in the district, as some parents opt to have their children schooling outside the district, owing to the history of the poor performance of Kagiso and Moeding.

According to the district report, which was presented during the recent full council, the results for the second term were below the target across all levels.

For those who will be writing final exams, the Standard Seven average the pass rate was at 79.7 per cent against a target of 85 per cent.

In the category of the junior certificate, an average pass rate was 45 per cent against a target of 65 per cent.

In the senior secondary schools, average pass rate of 31.38 per cent was recorded against a target of 65 per cent.

This was however said to be an improvement from the last term, where the average pass rate was 71.9 per cent, 19.65 per cent and 28.67 per cent respectively for Standard Seven, Form Three and Form Fives.

However, in order to improve the performance, the report stated that the regional education office would strengthen in-service training of teachers and intensify school inspections and school visits.

Still on pupils’ performance matters, the district report explained that the Central Resource Centre, which performed an assessment of learners with special education needs for the entire country in the public sector was incapacitated.

 A serious shortage of manpower to deliver timely assessment services to regions and schools was said to be a challenge.

“There is only one educational psychologist, one speech and language therapist, one vision impairment specialist and one case coordinator,” report explained.

 The report said about 1 707 pupils were still to be assessed, hence the need for more posts and support for learners with special needs. Ends