PRIME Minister Kassim Majaliwa has instructed Regional Commissioners (RCs) countrywide to closely supervise construction of classrooms in their respective areas to accommodate all students who have been selected to join Form One in public secondary schools next year.
“Regional Commissioners should ensure that facilities under their jurisdictions are completed on time and ensure that all students start classes at once.
If they (the students) start at diverse dates, those who would delay would be at the risk of not performing well,” Mr Majaliwa observed.
The Premier issued the directives yesterday, while briefing Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM)’s Ruangwa District Executive Committee members on implementation of the party manifesto.
According to results released by the National Examination Council of Tanzania (NECTA), a total of 759,737 out of the 933,369 candidates who sat for the National Standard Seven Examinations, this year, representing 81.50 per cent of all registered passed the examination.
The 933,369 candidates represent 98.55 per cent of all candidates who had registered for the national examination.
Among the selected students enlisted for public secondary schools countrywide include 395,738 girls, representing 80.87 per cent of all candidates, while the number of boys stands at 363,999 which is equivalent to 82.20 per cent of all registered candidates.
The breakdown by NECTA shows that there was an increase of 3.78 per cent in the pass rate this year at 81.50 per cent in comparison to 77.72 per cent that was recorded last year.
It is on this backdrop that the PM tasked the RCs to make sure that there are adequate classrooms to accommodate all students, who have been selected to join secondary education.
“There have been a tendency in the past to enrol the students in phases, but this is not fair because those admitted after their colleagues have begun classes tend not to perform better academically,” the PM stated.
In a related development, the Premier instructed regional authorities to closely follow up and take punitive measures against anyone, who would be found to have impregnated or married a schoolgirl and disrupting her studies.
“The government has put in place a policy to protect schoolgirls to enable them to complete their studies and to be socially and economically on their own.
It is thus prohibited to disrupt their studies. “Schoolgirls must be protected and anyone distracting them by either marrying or impregnating them, should be sent to jail for 30 years.”
Meanwhile, Mr Majaliwa has commended the fifth phase government for availing funds to execute projects, including 38bn/- that was disbursed to strategic schemes in his home district of Ruangwa. Mr Majaliwa also took the opportunity to shower praise to district authorities who constructively used some of the funds to construct a storage facility in Lipande village at 5.45bn/-.
The granary is now capable of storing 20,000 tonnes of farm produce and touted as monitoring revenue collections in the district.
