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Beatrice Tonhodzayi-Ngondo Make A Difference
We have just come out of the results season for last year’s primary, secondary and school examinations. Lower Six students have embarked on their Advanced Level journey while those in Form 1 have by now begun to understand that primary school is gone and they are now in the more serious turf called secondary education.
Such is life.
As time moves, the children grow and they move from one rung of education to the other.
It is the normal way of things.
It can be a nightmare however, if your child does not perform well, whether it is at Grade 7, Form 4 or Upper Six.
The devastation that is felt by both the parents and the child concerned is something that only one that has gone through it can appreciate.
Nobody wants to fail and no one likes the disappointment that comes with failing even if they know that they are not particularly strong at a certain subject. Some of us remember how we would shed tears after failing Maths even though we knew that even the greatest miracle would never have seen us passing the subject.
But each time the fail symbol appeared on a result slip, you would find yourself shedding tears. You would also see the disappointment on your parents’ face as they pondered the next move.
With our system being firmly based on the academics as a country, it is devastating when a child does not perform well.
Considering that progress to Form One and Form Five is based mostly on how well one would have performed earlier, it becomes a tragedy when the results are not impressive.
It is for that reason that I found myself poring over the top schools in terms of Grade 7, Form 4 and A Level results over recent weeks.
To my amazement, schools that charge less and are less pretentious did better in both Grade 7 and Form 4 results. Mission schools, Government schools and police schools performed exceptionally well in Grade 7 as well as Form 4 examinations.
This is despite the fact that when it comes to school fees, they charge very little compared to the many mushrooming private schools.
Most of the private schools do not even have sports fields for pupils to participate in sporting activities.
Some of the schools do not even have the necessary infrastructure and as a result, do not provide a holistic package which is commensurate with their charges.
Today my focus is not to bash private schools. The focus is to question the belief that they always do better. After all, as we all saw with Grade 7 results, smaller classes, better buildings and higher fees do not necessarily produce good results. Except for some cases where some private schools are obviously so small and so new that they had as little as 30 candidates in total sitting for Grade 7 in a year (which obviously allowed teachers to truly give attention to all the children) the bulk of those schools which achieved a 100 percent pass rate at Grade 7 had more than 120 candidates, translating to classes having as many as 40 pupils in some cases.
They were also public schools.
Private schools, save for a few were conspicuous in their absence at the top.
While many others and myself will continue to slave away so that my children continue to enjoy the smaller classes that they are in at their ‘private schools’ now, the Grade 7 and Form 4 results posed some food for thought.
Yes, in terms of Form 4, private schools were not included in the rankings because they do not sit for the ZIMSEC examinations but rather Cambridge.
But the trends depicted something which many may want to think a bit harder about. Is it always about the more expensive and exclusive options?
We know that over the past few years, there has been a proliferation of private schools that have literally mushroomed in every corner.
Some of the private colleges are even in residential areas.
Some are renting apartment buildings in town while others are in the Avenues, a part of town where you would not want your child loitering around. But because of the ‘private school’ element, parents will slave so that they send their children there.
What lures all these parents is the hope and dream for a better tomorrow for their child.
Challenges that took place in the public school system in the past, resulting in teaching services, infrastructure and sporting activities taking a knock make parents and guardians not see that some private schools are not the best in terms of development of children.
While this was happening in public schools, the traditional private schools, which have been there for many years, continued to produce excellent results and do exceedingly well in sports and other disciplines.
They also went the extra mile and introduced extras like computers, music, ballet, debate, robust interact clubs and other exciting programmes that focus on developing a well rounded young person. Some of these schools (even if your child does not pass in terms of academics) produce a young person who can make a living through doing so much more, whether it is sports, music, modelling, designing — you name it. For that they deserve their kudos.
But these mushrooming ones, need a bird’s eye view.
For the fees they are charging, they better deliver. There may be room for parents to revisit and re-look at what to consider when choosing schools.
Is it worthy of being called ‘a private school’? By looking into some of these issues more closely, we may see a difference in the pass rate, which is now such a cause of concern.
Online Reporter