Africa-Press – Botswana. With a 0.31 per cent decline in the level of performance for the class of 2023 Junior Certificate Examinations (JCE), the Botswana Teachers Union (BTU) calls for parents’ intervention.
A total of 44, 750 candidates sat for the examinations and the pass rate for the 2023 cohort was at 77.79 per cent compared to the 78.1 per cent of the 2022 cohort.
Speaking in an interview on Monday, the BTU vice president (Secondary Sector), Ms Galefetolwe Dithobane said the proportion of candidates obtaining Grade C or better was 37.0 per cent and the proportion of candidates obtaining Grade E or better stood at 82.7 per cent.
Ms Dithobane urged parents, as critical stakeholders in the education sector, to also take responsibility of their children’s education.
She said they ought to be more involved, noting that nowadays children go through a lot and become more susceptible to emotional distress that may hinder their learning.
“Parents need to be seen working with teachers for the children’s good. This should be a wake-up call to all involved to return to the crossroads and assess how the syllabus may have significantly influenced the examination outcome.
The time has come to review its relevance now,” she said.
Ms Dithobane said the continued decline of the results was a cause for concern and it signified a disaster in the education system.
This, she said, could only be ratified if all education stakeholders came together to interrogate the sector and develop targeted interventions to remedy the status quo. The country has over 200 junior secondary schools, but the number of schools with a percentage pass of 50 per cent or more of grades A to C across all regions has not exceeded 40 per cent for the past few years, she said.
In 2020 there were 26 schools, 37 in 2021, 28 in 2022 and 35 in 2023 and according to Ms Dithobane, these numbers will spell a disaster in the long run.
Furthermore, Ms Dithobane said the stagnation of teachers’ progression could also be attributed to the current status, as they were not motivated.
“Over and above, the current syllabus which came into effect in 2010 seems to have compounded the situation at Junior Secondary Schools. It can be seen from the results of the 2012 cohort that the results have been in a free fall since then,” she said.
Notwithstanding the decline in performance, Ms Dithobane said the Union would like to congratulate the students who did well in these examinations and, above all, take their hats off to the teachers who made sure they performed remarkably well despite the unfavourable conditions they worked under.
To those students who did not do well, it is not the end of the road, they should be encouraged to continue pursuing other educational avenues, she concluded.
Meanwhile, Kgatladimo Junior Secondary School, PTA representative, and resident of Kgagodi, Ms Keneilwe Pitso said indeed parents ought to forge ties with the teachers and help in supporting students to attain good results.
Ms Pitso said it was worrisome that parents continue to be absent in schools even during times of students report collection.
She said this level of absenteeism by parents has now escalated to homestead as more children were left alone at home; a phenomena that threatened their safety and wellbeing.
Ms Pitso said it was every child’s right to have full presence of parents either at home or school and reiterated students’ performance would improve only through close relatives involvement in their studies.
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