Pupils repeat one grade for more than five years. A total of 19 girls fell pregnant in one year. Some grade 8 pupils cannot write their names. Adults as old as 25 years are in the matric class. The school’s pass rate for matric this year is 38.9%. Parents do not attend school meetings. Sporadic outbursts of violent behaviour by pupils are common. Vandalism of school property and infrastructure by pupils is rife.
This is Matshumane Secondary School in Glen Cowie, near Jane Furse, in Limpopo.
Sunday World has names of seven pupils in grade 8 who are over 18 and are repeating the grade either for the third, fourth, fifth or sixth time. There are multiple repeaters in other grades as well.
“We have two classes of full-time grade 12 repeaters,” said deputy principal Kgapo Hlabjago, who joined the school in February last year. The principal, Salome Ramokgopa, who was not at school due to a family emergency, took up the role in October and is the third principal since 2010.
“We have a serious problem here,” said Ntibaneng Maepa-Chokoe, a teacher who has been with the school for 36 years.
“We have children in grade 8 who cannot write their names,” she said.
One of the pupils who is repeating grade 8 for the sixth year is Advice Motene, who turns 20 in June. He has been in grade 8 since 2018. This year, Advice told his guardians; his grandfather Mamokwalo Motene, 74, and grandmother Mosegeledi Motene, 60, that he is not going back to school to repeat grade 8 again.
“He is a quiet, respectful and helpful boy who assists me with farming. His situation at school is making me sick. I’m not well because of Advice being stuck in the same grade for so many years. He now spends a lot of time in his room,” said his grandfather.
“We have gone to the school a number of times to find out what is wrong with my grandson,” said his grandmother, “Even last year in January we went to the school to ask why he failed,” she said.
Advice’s younger sister, 13-year-old Tshogofatso Motene, is in grade 9 and is also worried about her brother: “I want him to also pass and go to university,” she said.
Maepa-Chokoe, who was one of Advice’s teachers last year, said he is a quiet, respectful boy, who was even elected by his class in 2021 to be a peer leader.
“He is not a problematic child at all,” she said, adding that Advice had been sleeping a lot in class last year.
Asked what steps she had taken to deal with low academic performance in her class, Maepa-Chokoe said she spoke to the pupils individually to understand what was hindering them from performing in school.
“I also called meetings with the parents of the children. Some come to the meeting, others don’t. With some learners, the meeting would be attended by siblings.
“In a meeting I had with a parent, she told me that her child was ‘smart’ because he can fix a washing machine – dismantle it, fix the problem and assemble it again. She asked me how can a child like that fail,” she said.
Maepa-Chokoe said it was the first time last year that she attended a workshop to deal with policies such as progression and managing pregnancies at school.
“Children who are progressed are not coping,” said Hlabjago. “We have a special programme in the morning and afternoon, but children bdo not attend.
It is summer now, at 7am the sun is already out, but they do not attend these classes,” said Hlabjago.
He said weekend and holiday classes attracted fewer pupils, with some preferring to hang around taverns around the school.
“Out of over 200 grade 12s in our school, less than 70 attended the matric study camp last year,” said Hlabjago.
The school is vandalised by pupils as violent outbursts are becoming a regular occurrence.
Showing Sunday World ceilings, taps, electrical wires, Jojo tanks, fire extinguishers and water hoses that have been damaged, Hlabjago added that the school’s signage has long been vandalised.
In 2021 a total of 19 girls were pregnant and last year it was 13. The matric pass rate is up 5.9% from 33% in 2021.
For more education news from Sunday World, click here.
Follow @SundayWorldZA on Twitter and @sundayworldza on Instagram, or like our Facebook Page, Sunday World, by clicking here for the latest breaking news in South Africa. To Subscribe to Sunday World, click here
