It’s time for parents to become more involved in their children’s education
ALEXANDRA – Parents to partly shoulder blame for poor results.
It’s final exam time for Grade 12s when thereafter, some will rejoice from the fruits of their hard work while others cringe at the prospect of joining the unemployed ranks, become tempted into crime and other anti-social conduct to survive.
Soon after the results are released, the ritual blame game of Alex’s defenceless secondary schools will get into overdrive, leaving the teachers in misery for partly no fault of their own. This, as the miseducation of the African child continues in the township.
The critics will include parents who avoided their contractual obligation to their children’s education made at the beginning of the year. They should also bear responsibility on a societal matter, reflected through the poor, mediocre and average results. Aside from two or so of the schools, which have been hopping in and out of the 80 and 90 per cent pass mark, all five of them are still outdone by counterparts in other townships, former model C and private school and, by some rural poorly resourced schools, which have made the ultimate 100 per cent pass rate a culture.
Read: Department of Basic Education changes pass requirements
Aptly describing the debilitating effects of the criticism, East Bank High School principal, Isaac Tloloe said, “Children’s actions, conduct and behaviour always reflect their community. The challenge should be contextualised properly. Education is every child’s right but, comes with responsibility by all stakeholders including parents, the community and the child, who should create an enabling environment for quality education. Many parents only appear at the school once when enrolling children and blame the teachers for the poor results despite failing to attend meetings called to advise them on remedial support expected from the home.
“Also, they don’t attend parents meetings, scrutinise children’s report and take action on children seen loitering and smoking on the streets and in parks during school hours.”
He said some of the children even choose to attend matric dances in Durban when they should have been attending the department’s Secondary School Improvement Programme. “Others attended local bashes missing out on weekend tutorials and motivational talks. Others prefer loitering in parks, drinking alcohol, smoking drugs and engaging in love relations, matters beyond the desperate teachers’ control.
“The challenge points to the lack of values and a culture of irresponsibility on the part of the community,” added, Lebasa Seloane, a teacher at the school. He said, “Schools expect this when enrolling the children and the parents’ active involvement in children’s school work after school and over weekends. ”
“It’s impossible for secondary schools to rectify the damage caused by foundation and primary level education where some children fall pregnant, are involved in gangs, drug peddling and are progressed to higher grades through deceptive reports and when already over age.”
Tloloe added that some of them can’t write their names! They are disinterested in school and peddle in drugs. He worried about other schools poaching some of the local schools’ good performers to boost their own results and urged for psychological support to deal with the debilitating effects of the social conditions to both pupils and teachers.
Details: East Bank High School 011 443 7826.
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