Africa-Press – Tanzania. A TOTAL of 759,706 pupils have been selected to join Form One in January next year, the government announced yesterday.
Apparently, thousands of pupils who passed their Standard Seven national examinations this year will not be joining secondary education in January, because of inadequate classrooms.
Elaborating, Minister of State President’s Office Regional Administration and Local Gov ernments Selemani Jafo said, all pupils who are eligible, but have not been successful in the first selection will be considered after classrooms are constructed by the end of February next year.
In his address, he directed Regional and District commissioners whose areas face classrooms’ shortage to work with education stakeholders and complete their construction by the end of February next year.
He also directed pupils who have been selected to report for the classes without restrictions, saying: “I urge parents and guardians to collaborate with the Regional and District Administrative Secretaries to ensure all students are enrolled for studies by next month and on time.”
This is the first selection being released through the students’ selection management information system, where the minister noted that the system has helped to lower costs, save time and increase efficiency in the whole selection process.
The names released yesterday reflect a 91.1 per cent of the eligible pupils who passed their primary exams this year with Mr Jafo further saying about 74,166 of them will be in school by the end of February next year.
In breakdown, the number of pupils who will not be in classes in January has increased considerably from 58,699 pupils or 7.73 per cent in comparison to last year, when the figure was 8.9 per cent.
Dar es Salaam region topped the list with 14,926 pupils and a large number that will be under the waitlist followed by Geita (9,572), Mara (7,809), Dodoma (7,145), Coast (6,888), Mbeya(5,549) and Kigoma (5,498).
Others are Morogoro (4,686), Kilimanjaro (3,015), Arusha (2,768), Simiyu (1,837), Tanga (1,537), Iringa (907), Singida (674), Rukwa (564), Manyara (557) and Shinyanga (234).
However, pupils from Kagera, Katavi, Lindi, Mtwara, Mwanza, Njombe, Ruvuma, Songwe and Tabora with eligible qualifications will all join secondary education in January.
In a related statistics, about 970 pupils have been selected to join Form One in special schools, 1,238 in vocational institutions and 1,961 in boarding schools.
In Dodoma, the Regional Commissioner Dr Binilith Mahenge directed all district directors and the regional administrative secretary to complete the construction of the remaining classrooms before the minister’s issued deadline.
He said until now there is a shortage of 148 classrooms in the region with the City Council leading with the deficit of 50 classrooms.
Dr Mahenge said the regional academic performance has improved by 71 per cent in comparison to last year.
