Times Of Swaziland: SIYENDLE PUPILS DEMAND LESS HOURS, PUNISHED

SIYENDLE PUPILS DEMAND LESS HOURS, PUNISHED
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Nokuphila Mabuza on 25/03/2019 09:31:00


MBABANE – “Reduce schools hours, we are overburdened with schoolwork.”
In a rather first of its kind, pupils of Siyendle Community High School have
asked for less school hours with reduced homework. The request by the pupils is
said to have taken the administration of the school by surprise to a point where
they found themselves being punished for asking for less school hours. One of
the pupils, *Sandla told this publication that the Form IV pupils of Siyendle
Community High School, in the Shiselweni Region, felt overburdened by schoolwork
and the long hours. He said due to the many subjects they learnt each day, they
usually went home with a lot of homework and that meant they had no time left to
revise or study what they had learnt that day.
He further explained that they decided to write an official letter to the
school’s administration on March 13, requesting that the number of subjects
they learnt a day be reduced. The letter was to be sent through the head boy on
March 14 who, because being nervous, failed to submit the letter to the
school’s administration. As such, the head boy held on to the letter for a
couple of days. Sandla alleged that after the head boy said he could not deliver
the letter to the school’s administration, the pupils approached a senior
teacher, who advised them to make further attempts to have the letter sent to
the head teacher through the head boy, as per school protocol. However, the
letter was never delivered to the head teacher.
Sandla alleged that on March 19, the school’s administration called the whole
Form IV class to the school hall, where the 60 pupils convened, and each one of
them was given six strokes on the buttocks. Sandla claimed that they were then
sent home and told not to come to school, but to have their parents come to the
school. *Mrs Dlamini, a parent to one of the Form IV pupils, said her child came
home and told her that she was to report to the school the next day for a
meeting. Dlamini said she went to her child’s school, where she found other
parents who had been summoned too.
She said; “Each parent went in alone. When I went in, the head teacher, deputy
head teacher and two other teachers were in the room. “I was asked what my
child had said to me. I told them that she had informed me that the school had
asked us to come to the school and for them to remain at home.