adminSukulwenkosi Dube Plumtree Correspondent
PARENTS with children attending Mqokolweni High School in Mangwe District have accused teachers at the school of absconding lessons and spending time drinking beer at local bottle stores. They said the teachers’ behaviour was the reason behind the pupils’ indiscipline and waywardness. The parents, who are from Linda area, said teachers from the school had been spotted several times drinking beer at Linda Business Centre during school hours.
Parents who spoke in separate interviews said they feared that their children would fail public examinations.
“We always see some of these young teachers at the shops drinking beer during school hours. One then wonders what our children are being taught.
“The teachers are not serious with their work compared to their primary school counterparts,” said one of the parents, Jennifer Ngwenya.
Another parent, Mqondisi Maphosa, said a number of pupils whose performance was very good at primary school were now performing badly at secondary and teachers were to blame.
Maphosa said another worrying trend was that a number of girls were dropping out of school after falling pregnant.
Florence Moyo, who also has children at the school, said she expected a school to be an environment where a child’s future was shaped, not destroyed.
She said there was a need for the staff members at the school to be disciplined and also monitor pupils closely.
The National House of Assembly Member for Mangwe, Obedingwa Mguni, recently said when he toured a number of schools in his constituency, he discovered that teachers were not taking their work seriously.
He said the primary reason why some schools within the district were performing badly was that teachers were absconding work.
Mguni said there was a need for education authorities to closely monitor the performance of their employees especially in rural schools.
Twenty five pupils at Mqokolweni High School were recently suspended for smoking dagga at the school while 15 others were punished after they were caught drinking beer.
Online Reporter