No student is useless

Tshwarelo Hosia | Monday April 22, 2024 06:00

A school is founded on the premise that no student is useless or unteachable and that if sufficiently taught and challenged, all students can attain the desired academic proficiency and prosperity.

Consequently, no school worth its salt can afford the luxury of giving upon its students.

Consistent with the spirit of hope and positivity, it is a truism that students never fail but can only have a slow or delayed beginning. Writing off a student as a failure or some kind of a disaster not deserving a place in a learning institution is an error of judgement anchored on underestimation of the power of a school to turnaround any situation that appears hopeless. Thinking negatively works against the very purpose of a school and this should never be entertained. Let’s begin by giving credit where it is due. The foundation school level is a shining example of positive thinking.

Accommodating the possibility of a slow start, the ever-positive primary schools designed a breakthrough foundation programme intended to harness the potential of every learner. Pre and primary schools do not have any plan to leave any student behind. The breakthrough agenda is credited with its distinctive role of patiently and meticulously guiding a batch of slow beginners towards proficiency and their ultimate purpose in life. Indeed failure at the foundation stage is not an option. Trouble creeps in at subsequent education levels where hope is lost and ample room is created for culture of failure to take root and blossom unchallenged.

This explains why the system of education beyond primary schools continues to eject a lot of students on the way because where there is no hope there is no way. But schools can overturn and reverse signs of failure.

To achieve this end, two critical things are required, namely, early detection of signposts pointing to the direction of the abyss and the development of immediate appropriate interventions to nip in the bud signs of underachievement. It is a case of managing a problem before getting out of control. Procrastination, they say, is the thief of time. Right now schools are winding up their first term teaching business to embark on a well-deserved respite.

Critical questions vexing seriously result-oriented schools are what happened, how did it happen and what shall be done about the situation at hand. Less result-oriented schools could be a little indifferent to the data confronting them. End of term now means work must begin in earnest to reinforce significant student gains made while closing gaps experienced. This cannot be postponed to a later date. For new entrants who joined the school system as unknown quantities, end of term one data means the lot is better known.

Various factors do explain why a slow start. Some students who came with a better pedigree might have underestimated the task at hand while the progress of other students who are otherwise gifted may have been slowed down by preoccupation with past achievements. Over celebration of past achievement records could be one of the reasons why an A student finds himself/herself downgraded shockingly to a C grade at the end of term one. This is no time to write off the student. It is a slow beginning indicating that if corrective measures are not put in place, the road to the abyss might be a possibility. First term students achievement data is available and ready for scrutiny.

All those involved should interact with the data to work out appropriate remedies. Data speaks not to just how well students have applied themselves but to the quality of teacher delivery in the classroom and to governance issues. With regard to the latter, the school managers should never sit on their laurels or do ball watching. They should be in the thick of things to ensure that their charges offer top-notch teaching service. Left to their own devices, some teachers may not unleash their best selves.

There is no running away from the fact that classroom instruction can make or break students. Teachers must never relent in their quest for better classroom service. Approaches, which produced magic in a particular generation of students, may not necessarily produce the same results for the next generation. No one should bask in the glory of past achievements at the expense of resetting strategies to address emerging challenges.

This means teachers must regard themselves as a learning community ready to adapt their teaching approaches to accommodate new circumstances. To close gaps identified during the first term student-teacher encounter some schools, subject to availability of sponsorship, would embark on educational tours. The educational excursions create a bond between students and teachers, widens students’ horizons while creating synergy and a desire to unite for a common goal among teachers.

Funds permitting also, other schools may do holiday teaching to extend student-teacher contact time while others may settle for giving students some take home holiday assignments. The fact of the matter is that first term results should invite a quick and swift response from all concerned. Even parents should respond by way of dealing with issues of concern brought to their attention. Parents should be able to deal sufficiently with issues of chronic attendance or poor attendance during school recess. Oversight institutions responsible for teacher professional development should never sit on the fence and do nothing about school achievement data presented to them. Simply filing data is a matter of compiling data for compliance and not for the purpose of making a difference. Otherwise any system that chooses to remain indifferent and unconcerned to first term school data can only do so at its own peril.