Students repeat a grade for over five years. In one year, a total of 19 girls were pregnant. Some eighth-grade students cannot write their own names. There are adults as old as 25 in the matric class. This year, the school’s matriculation pass percentage is 38.9%. Parents do not attend school meetings. Students frequently engage in sporadic acts of violence. Students routinely deface school property and infrastructure.
This is Matshumane Secondary School in Glen Cowie, Limpopo, close to Jane Furse.
The Sunday World lists seven eighth-grade students who are above the age of 18 and repeating the grade for the third, fourth, fifth, or sixth time. There are also numerous repeaters in other grades.
“We have two classes of full-time grade 12 repeaters,” said the school’s assistant principal, who started in February of last year. Salome Ramokgopa, who was absent from school due to a family emergency, was appointed principal in October and is the school’s third leader since 2010.
The school’s 36-year-old teacher, Ntibaneng Maepa-Chokoe, stated, “We have a serious problem here.”
She stated, “We have eighth-grade students who cannot write their names.”
Advice Motene, who will turn 20 in June, is one of the students repeating grade 8 for the sixth time. He has been in grade 8 since 2018. This year, Advice informed his guardians, his grandfather Mamokwalo Motene, 74, and grandmother Mosegeledi Motene, 60, that he will not repeat eighth grade.
“He is a respectful, helpful, and quiet young man who assists me with farming. His condition at school makes me nauseous. Because Advice has been in the same grade for so many years, I am ill. “He now spends a great deal of time in his room,” his grandfather remarked.
His grandmother stated, “We’ve been to the school several times to find out what’s wrong with my grandson.” Even in January of last year, we went to the school to inquire about his failure, she stated.
Advice’s younger sister, 13-year-old Tshogofatso Motene, is in the ninth grade and is likewise concerned about her brother: “I want him to pass and attend college,” she said.
Maepa-Chokoe, one of Advice’s instructors from the previous school year, remarked that he is a respectable, quiet youngster who was voted class leader in 2021.
“He is not at all a problem child,” she claimed, adding that Advice slept a lot in class the previous year.
When asked what efforts she had done to address the low academic performance in her class, Maepa-Chokoe stated that she had spoken with each student personally to determine what was impeding their academic achievement.
“I also scheduled meetings with the children’s parents. Some attend the meeting, while others do not. For some students, siblings would attend the conference.
“During a discussion I had with a parent, she informed me that her child was’smart’ because he could disassemble a washing machine, solve the problem, and reassemble it. She questioned how a youngster like that could fail.
Last year was the first time Maepa-Chokoe attended a training dealing with school policies such as progression and pregnancy management.
“Progressed children are not coping,” stated Hlabjago. Children do not participate in our morning and afternoon special programs.
Now that summer has arrived, the sun is already up at 7 a.m., yet they do not attend these classes,” Hlabjago remarked.
He stated that weekend and holiday classes attracted fewer students since some preferred to congregate in nearby bars.
Last year, less than 70 of our school’s more than 200 grade 12 students attended the matric study camp, according to Hlabjago.
Students are vandalizing the school, and violent outbursts are becoming commonplace.
Hlabjago noted that the school’s signs had been vandalized for a long time, displaying broken Sunday World ceilings, taps, electrical wiring, Jojo tanks, fire extinguishers, and water hoses.
In 2021, 19 girls became pregnant, compared to 13 the previous year. The matriculation pass rate has increased by 5.9% from 33% in 2021.
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