Boy hangs himself after JC results

MANKAYANE – A Form III pupil committed suicide after he failed the Junior Certificate (JC) external examinations.

Sabelo Mdluli hung himself at Macudvulwini area on Wednesday afternoon.

Mdluli, a pupil at Hlathi-khulu Central, hung himself near a stream after listening in vain for his name to be called by Junior Certificate results radio announcers. The results were aired on Wednesday.

Mdluli, keen on hearing his name called out by the Swaziland Broadcasting and Information Services (SBIS) announcers, took his brother’s radio and sat outside under a tree to listen alone.

His sister in-law, who was the only person at home with Mdluli, didn’t pay attention to the results as a matter of fact.

It is presumed that when the radio announcer finished reading out the names of pupils from Hlathikhulu Central, Mdluli coolly returned the radio to the flat and disappeared.

The sister in-law didn’t notice a change in behaviour, nor did she enquire if Mdluli had passed.

Mdluli’s step-father, Silvion Jele, said the search for Mdluli began on Wednesday evening, and he was only discovered by a boy in the mountains on Thursday morning hanging from a tree, dead.

"The boy was my step-son, he is from Hlathikhulu area where he did his schooling. I don’t know the name of the school, but he was doing Form III. We suspect he killed himself because he failed the examinations," said a sombre looking Jele.

He said they were not aware of the deceased’s academic capabilities.

"It is sad that he killed himself over examination results," lamented Jele, who would pause for lengthy periods during the interview.

However, the dead boy’s school is not among the worst performing schools that are led by Sigcaweni Secondary, which is under the leadership of PUDEMO Secretary Sphasha Dlamini.

Police Public Relations Officer Superintendent Vusi Masuku confirmed the death.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Education and Training has pledged to intensively investigate all the schools that performed extremely badly in the JC Examination.

The worst performing schools comprise the likes of Sigcaweni Secondary (62 failures), Ngudzeni High (52), Sikhunyana High (47) , Madzanga I Secondary (36), Mpuluzi High (30), Makhonza (30), Mswati II Methodist (34), Egebeni Secondary (33), Sibovu Secondary (40), to name but a few.

Pat Muir, the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Training, said the poor results attained by the schools were a serious cause for concern to the portfolio.

Muir stressed that it would be folly for his ministry to fold its arms and pretend all was well regarding the JC results yet that was not the case.

"As a parent ministry, we’re deeply concerned," he said. "We ought to follow up and probe the schools that demonstrated a dismal performance in order to find out the real cause of such devastating results."

Muir said it was hard to fathom that two classes (62 pupils) could fail in one school.

"The ministry will have no choice, but to respect the findings of the probe and act as per the recommendations," said the PS.

He sounded optimistic that the investigations would help benefit the poorly performing schools.

The PS said failure could be attributed to two factors namely:

* Question of providing extra training to teachers

* Lack of infrastructure

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