Where are the famous govt schools?

                                      

                                     Some A-level schools likely to miss students

 

Secretary of National Examinations Council of Tanzania (NECTA), Dr Charles Msonde

 The Form IV results released on Thursday by the National Examinations Council of Tanzania (NECTA) have painted a gloomy picture on performance trends of government schools that used to make headlines in the past.

A discussion ensued yesterday in social media with discussants being apprehensive on the dwindling performance of students in public schools compared to their colleagues in privately owned schools. 

A hot debate ensued after it came to light that no government school secured any spot in the top ten schools in the results announced by NECTA. Schools that featured in the top ten are Kaizirege in Kagera, Alliance Girls in Mwanza, St. Francis Girls in Mbeya, Alliance Boys in Mwanza, Canosa in Dar es Salaam , Marian Boys in Coast Region, Alliance Rock  Army in Mwanza, Feza Boys in Dar es Salaam, Feza Girls in Dar es Salaam and Uru Seminary in Kilimanjaro.

“Where are our famous secondary schools such as Minaki, Mzumbe, Malangali, Tabora Girls and Boys, Ilboru, Kilakala, Mara etc?” asked one of the contributors to the post in a major social media outlet.

Unfortunately, even in the list of ten best students, only one student identified as Sang’udi E Sang’udi from Ilboru Secondary School appeared. The remaining nine students came from privately owned schools.

Some contributors to the debate went further to blame the government for not responding positively to teachers’ grievances such as poor pay, poor working conditions and failure of the government to promote them.

“They way I see things now it is as if teachers are in a go-slow. There is no devotion among them. The government must do something to rectify the situation,” another contributor to the debate said. 

Apart from lack of teaching and learning materials and a poor learning and teaching environment in most government schools, contributors to the debate threw a portion of blame to the students themselves for lack of concentration in the classrooms.

“During our days in school we lacked teachers in certain subjects yet we performed well because we used to spend our holidays attending tuition, discussing in groups and even at school we used to pay attention to teachers. But today the situation is different as our young boys and girls spend most of their time watching television programmes and listening to music,” another person threw in his contribution. 

This year’s results show that out of 433,633 students who sat for the final Form IV examination last year only 89,929 scored between Divisions I and Division III. The rest scored Division IV and Zero. 

With the adoption of free basic education from primary to secondary education starting this year more effort is needed at investing in the country’s education infrastructure, including improving teachers’ welfare, since failure to do so shall bring the nation to witness  more mass failure tendencies in future.

As less than 90,000 students have scored between DIV I and III there is likelihood that some A level schools miss students for enrolment this year, social media commentators noted.