FINGER POINTING AS SCHOOLS OPEN

Drama and finger-pointing between the main stakeholders in the education of the Swati child never cease.

Shortly after results for the two external examinations were released in December, the Ministry of Education and Training sent letters to heads of schools that had performed poorly, demanding written answers within seven days.
That brief drama ended with head teachers refusing to account for bad results in the 2024 external examinations.

One of the head teachers of a school that attained a disappointing 27.14 per cent pass rate had been encouraged to ‘take the ministry into her confidence’ and give reasons, then share specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound (SMART) recommendations of how she and other stakeholders could remedy the situation. From the outset, the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) dismissed this idea, saying government was victimising its members.

SNAT Secretary General Lot Vilakati went on to launch a scathing attack on government, saying it was not paying grants to schools on time, not filling vacant teacher positions and not delivering food on time. He also mentioned the long-standing matter of contract teachers, saying many of them had not been converted to permanent and pensionable staff.

He said some teachers qualified to teach in high school had been deployed to primary schools. According to Vilakati, all these factors contributed to the high number of fails registered in the 2024 examinations. On Friday, January 10, 2024, at a meeting between the ministry’s officials and heads of schools, the administrators took turns discarding the idea of accounting for poor results.

Among other things, they said government usually failed to hire new teachers before the beginning of a new academic year, leaving learners without teachers for certain subjects. They also highlighted lack of training for teachers on new curricula introduced by the Ministry of Education. Apparently, a group of teachers who trained for the newly-introduced competency-based curriculum (CBE) graduated as far back as 2019, but have not yet been employed by government. Infrastructure challenges were also cited, with speakers at the meeting saying severe weather had damaged some of their facilities. The COVID-19 pandemic we kissed goodbye to three years ago was also mentioned.

Now I will go back to the words of former Minister for Education Phineas Magagula, who was interviewed for his view on government’s demand for answers regarding poor performance by some schools. The former minister, who is a career educator having been a teacher and a head teacher himself before getting into politics, said finger pointing was not the solution.

His view was that pupils should be the priority and stakeholders should ‘collectively analyse the situation and come up with long-term solutions’ to ensure improved results in schools. “You cannot pin the blame on government alone, as much as you cannot pin it on the teachers alone,” he told a Times of Eswatini reporter. That is my point exactly.

Justice

As parents, journalists and other interested parties, we would not be doing justice to this very important national matter if we sided with any party over another. Besides, it is because it is every employer’s right to demand accountability for the performance of an employee. After all, the employer pays the wages. The employee should always be ready and willing to provide answers for poor performance, just as the employer should reward the worker for exceptional performance.

Being accountable does not necessarily mean taking all the blame.  By the letters to heads of schools that performed poorly, government was initiating dialogue. I actually wondered if the irony was lost on head teachers because, while refusing to be accountable for the poor performance, they did just that at the January 10 meeting at Ngwane Park High School. They were candid in giving Minister of Education Owen Nxumalo and his officials the reasons they regarded as being behind the abysmal showing.

However, their approach of pointing all five fingers at government and not accepting even the slightest responsibility was wrong. Head teachers are there to provide direction to teachers and learners, as well as liaise with the ministry and school committees. That means they are at the centre of the entire teaching-learning process and accountability should start with them.

They know which classes do not have teachers, which teachers are not doing their jobs, which teachers come late or absent themselves, etc. It just cannot be possible that school administrators everywhere are doing their jobs to the expected level. Some of us have never been teachers, but we are parents and were once learners. We have observed errant teachers come to school drunk or unprepared.

In some schools, it is actually the head teacher who is problematic. It has been reported many times before that some heads of schools run parallel private businesses and concentrate on them, leaving teachers in a ‘kampunz’idla emini’ (devil may care) environment. Besides, if we are not going to have accountability from heads of schools that have performed poorly, what are we saying about those whose schools did well?

Drama

It is unfortunate that schools are opening this Tuesday, but the finger-pointing drama continues. SNAT now says government should hire 4 000 teachers, deliver food to all schools and pay all necessary grants before Tuesday.
According to the union, failure to do so would render the opening of schools a joke because no proper learning will take place.

On Friday, SNAT’s Facebook page was replete with troubling pictures from the national executive’s visit to neglected schools. Ndlaleni Primary School, for example, practically has no furniture like desks and chairs for learners, among other lacking amenities.  Mayiwane High School was found to have six classrooms without roofing.

The roofing was ripped off by a windstorm in November 2024 and has not been repaired. At the same time, government says it has adopted the ‘nkwe’ approach in preparing for schools opening, with the employment of 1 316 contract teachers and the delivery of stationery to some schools. It is making a few other fancy promises.

After all has been said and done, it is obvious that there is glaring disparity in terms of readiness for Tuesday. While some schools have been neglected and are clearly not ready to open, others are raring to go. This is very worrying.

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: