With matric trial exams set to start within 10 days and less than half of the syllabus in critical subjects such as physical science covered due to teacher shortages, Uitenhage’s Molly Blackburn High School pupils are at their wits’ end – and worried about their futures.
Principal Mninawa Sitole said the school had lost three teachers at the end of the first term – one resigned and two died in separate accidents.
This exacerbated the situation at the school, which was already battling a teacher shortage, with no teachers for physical science, life orientation (for matrics), English, history, computer applied technologies and natural sciences.
Sitole and education department spokesperson Malibongwe Mtima said on Friday that the district department was attending to the matter urgently, with the first of the appointments – a physical science teacher – expected to take place at the end of August.
But most of the school’s 199 matrics feel it is too little, too late for their 2018 class, with the National Senior Certificate preliminary exams scheduled to start on August 29.
Pupils’ frustrations resulted in a two-day protest last week.
“Since the start of the second term we haven’t had a science teacher, we haven’t even covered half of the syllabus yet,” student representative council member Mkayi Luphelo, 17, said.
“Then, at the end of the year, blame is shifted to the pupils for the poor results.
“We don’t even have textbooks to carry on by ourselves, so we’d had enough and decided to show our anger at the quality of education we are receiving.
“Not for us as matrics – it is too late for us – but for the grade 11s and 10s, so they don’t have to go through the same struggle next year.”
Sitole said the pupils’ protest was justified as they were understandably frustrated with the state of affairs.However, the school said it was doing its best.
“We tried throughout the year to fill these vacancies,” Sitole said.
“In the interim, we have reshuffled teachers to address the problems, and have received tutors from the department to assist.
“We will also have additional classes to catch up.
“We do understand the plight of the pupils and as much as we have tried to provide the best quality education we can, in subjects such as science we were unable to do so.”
Matric pupil Sibusiso Thys, 18, said the school only took real action after the protest.
“We had been told since March that we were getting other teachers, but nothing.
“Now a week after the protest we are getting a teacher the same month,” Sibusiso said.
“It begs the question, how hard did they really try?
“So many of these matrics’ future prospects have been affected because of this. They require good science results to pursue certain careers next year, which they almost certainly won’t get now.
“We are writing a national paper – when it is marked, no one cares why we couldn’t prepare well.”
Grade 11 pupil Siphumeze Dumaphi, 18, said they last had a science lesson in April, which hampered their chances of getting into tertiary institutions.
“Varsities also look at your Grade 11 marks but we haven’t had a teacher since April,” Siphumeze said.
“I sincerely hope this will be resolved before we reach matric.”