EMPHUMELELWENI INVITES PUPILS WHO FAILED FORM III

MBABANE - While some schools give preference to top performing pupils, Emphumelelweni High School has committed to transforming those who did not make it in their Junior Certificate (JC) exams in 2022.

Emphumelelweni High School is a new community school situated under the Maphalaleni Constituency. The school has shown its commitment through inviting pupils who failed Form III to register for the class of 2023. Also, it has been a standard procedure that pupils are taken back to Form II should they fail Form III. This has resulted in some pupils dropping out of school due to frustration while others upgraded the subjects they had failed.

Confirmed

The Head teacher of the school, Innocent Cindzi, confirmed the invitation for applications in an interview yesterday. Cindzi said the invitation was informed by the desire and willingness to prepare all emaSwati children for a better future across the country. He said with his team, he believed they could make things happen with the Form III pupils who did not make it in the class of 2022. “I have a slogan which says; “I want it, I will get it.” This slogan serves as a motivation to the pupils once they adopt it. I believe nothing is impossible with me and my team as we are ready and willing to solve any challenges encountered by pupils,” he said. Cindzi stated that with his team, he managed to attain 96.4 per cent pass rate in JC exams in two years since the school started operating.

He stated that there was no secret about producing good results. He shared that as teachers, they always had strategies on how to capacitate the pupils to become what they wanted them to be. “All pupils who want to feel it and enjoy a good pass should come to our school. We are committed to making things happen,” he said. Asked about how he intended to admit the pupils, Cindzi stated that he was hoping to admit pupils from Maphalaleni. However, he mentioned that the admission would not only be limited to pupils of the area. “I will rather negotiate with the Ministry of Education and Training for working shifts and shelter than leaving pupils out of class. I do not think the ministry will have an issue with this as quality education features as Sustainable and Development Goal (SOG) 4,” he said. SDG 4 seeks to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Cindzi said he believed in preparing pupils for Form III as opposed to taking them back to Form II.

He also shared that he had made it a habit to go around schools motivating pupils before sitting their final examinations across the country. He shared that he was passionate about teaching, since he used to share a lot with his mother who was also in the teaching profession. Minister of Education and Training Lady Mabuza lauded the school for its initiative. The minister said the ministry was yet to issue a statement and remind schools that Form III admission was compulsory. Mabuza said all pupils deserved a chance to repeat Form III in the same school. “They deserve a chance to repeat in the same school where they have failed (kumele baphidze kuleso sikolwa ngoba kubaphunyukele khona). Pupils are not supposed to go back to Form II because they had passed that class. Taking the pupils back to Form III is an old and outdated fashion,” she said.

When SNAT was asked about its stance towards repeating of Form III pupils in the same schools, the organisation’s Secretary General (SG), Lot Vilakati, said for this to happen smoothly, government should take it upon itself to hire more teachers and build more classrooms. He said the more the teachers and classrooms in the schools, the more pupils would be admitted. Vilakati believed that overcrowding  contributed to pupils failing, which he said resulted in the teachers not having enough time to attend to the pupils individually. “In some schools, we have slow learners who need special attention to pass and this speaks to the need of hiring more teachers. Again, failure is contributed by the outdated and old fashion syllabus. Government needs to introduce a practical-based syllabus, just like in Mozambique, in order to minimise failing by pupils.”

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