Nkate wants cure for sick schools

This came in the wake of parents around the country complaining in Kgotla meetings and even calling the teaching service management asking for the sacking of all the  failing teachers in the schools.

At Kokong Primary School in the Southern District Council only three students out of 27, who sat for primary school leaving examinations last year obtained Grade C, while the rest of the students obtained grade D.

'There cannot be a few hopeful students in one class such that they can fail dismally like that. Instead of rushing to such schools I would rather we work on a comprehensive plan on how they could be assisted,' Nkate said. He pointed out that every year after the results are announced they look at the trend of each school as to whether their results are improving or deteriorating.

'We then sent a team of experts from our ministry to the schools that are continuously under-performing to try and understand what the problem could be,' Nkate said, adding that in the past there have been some improvements in poorly performing schools after their interventions.

The minister said that teachers should not be blamed alone for poor performance as it could be caused by poor leadership, poor working relationship between the parents, teachers and the students, negligence of parents and teachers or just a culture of poor performance by the students.

The ministry has in the recent past relieved the heads of department, deputy headmasters and the headmasters from teaching to concentrate more on managing the school and monitoring teachers.