02 May 2022

Though Shashe River School in Tonota is doing well academically, indiscipline among learners is a serious concern.

This was said by Tonota MP, Mr Pono Moatlhodi when addressing Parents Teachers Association (PTA) and management meeting at the school on Saturday, where he registered a concern about indiscipline among Shashe River School pupils. 

He explained that one of the contributory factors was the ineffectiveness of the PTA, which had only three members out of the required eight.

He explained that PTAs acted as a conduit between the parents and the school and they played an important role in the running of the school as they were part of the school governance. He said PTAs should focus on what learners needed for a successful learning including their welfare. 

Mr Moatlhodi explained that a school that had a non-functioning PTA was equivalent to a non-existing one because the association worked with the school management to ensure that pupils succeed. He appealed to the school management to help functionalise the PTA. On other issues, Mr Moatlhodi, who is also the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, advised the school to benchmark from Masunga Senior Secondary School, which was the current overall performing senior secondary school the in country.

“Find out what the school is doing differently to attain good results,” he said. As one way of creating a positive learning environment for every pupil, he also advised the school management to engage parents on the education of their children.

Giving an overview of the school’s performance, deputy school head, Mr George Showa said the school academic performance over the past two years had seen it score 20.35 points in the BGCSE results of 2020.

While in 2021, the school had 21.26 points, a slight improvement.

He said notable achievement in the top achievers was in 2022, whereby one pupil, Thabiso Sibanda managed to get 6A* to make it into the top achievers list nationally.

He added that in 2021, three pupils; Kgosi Sepadile, with 7A* and 2As, Florence Pillar who managed 6A*, 3As and 1B and Letlhogonolo Moatshe with 6As and 3Bs made it to the BGCSE top achievers list.  For pupils’ results who attained six credits and better, he said such had seen the school clinch position 15 out of 34 schools.

He said the school management and Tonota Sub-region education department engaged each other on an academic programme and strategy that would see the school achieve a top 10 in the coming BGCSE exams as a short term goal for a broader academic vision in which Shashe River School sought to be amongst the top five performing schools in the country by 2024.

He said the school had a history of good academic performance, having been in the past ranked the number two best school, an achievement the current school management under school head Mr Mpaladzi Majingo sought to achieve through its academic strategy.

However, he said the school was faced with challenges that included that of double shift, which had split the Form Fives into two groups of 14 classes each.

For the shifting model, Form Fives come to school at 6:30am till 2:30pm with afternoons being used for assessment and BGCSE practicals for those subjects with practical components. Mr Showa said the challenge of double shift as imposed by COVID-19 outbreak meant that teachers were generally unable to help pupils as they would normally do in a normal set up.

He explained that the school had partitioned its entertainment hall and part of the dining hall to create more teaching spaces.

However, he said the other challenge was that the school failed to secure desks, which had hampered the use of extra space though efforts were being done to secure some.

Mr Showa said the school had  resorted to using science labs as base classrooms, presenting another challenge of pupils in some instances vandalising spealised teaching areas.

PTA chairpersons, Mr Benjamin Mzanywa informed the MP that the school was faced with a challenge of shortage of teacher’s accommodation and indiscipline among pupils, some of whom bring drugs into the school premises. ENDS.