When they have to go to a new school

What you need to know:

  • The change of environmemnt had affected her, every thing was new to her, from the teachers to the neighbourhood.

When Neema Timothy’s daughter was shifted to another school , her academic performance dropped drastically.

The change of environmemnt had affected her, every thing was new to her, from the teachers to the neighbourhood.

Neema, who currently resides in Tabata, surbub in Dar es Salaam, was to transfer her daughter to another school after the family moved to a new house.

“We were shifting and so we decided to look for a nearby school, my child was always top of her class but when I transferred her to another school, she dropped from position one to three,” she says.

“She studied at the second school for a year and we shifted her to the third school because we wanted her to have better performance. We thought that it might add some value,” explains Neema who is also a lecturer at Tumaini University.

However, she says despite her daughter’s impressive performance since she was transferred from the first school, she has never been position one.

Neema feels that changing schools could have affected her child’s performance. “I think changing the school environment really affected her class performance,” she says.

Educationists are of the view that changing schools can affect social and emotional experience for pupils and students, as they have to deal with not just a change in their school environment but it also affect their social network of friends from previous school as well.

The same way change affects grown up people children are also affected. This always happens when parents change jobs, it forces them to shift their children too.

However, for others, the change of school can be a motivating factor for improvement in case there is a stiff academic competition among pupils in the new school.

It is very likely that most parents would not take note of the improvement as it takes time for a pupil to adjust to a certain environment.

Some parents also have the feeling that the first teacher would be able to do thorough follow up compared to a new teacher in another school. Despite not accepting the blames, most teachers say such lack of close follow up could be due to overcrowding in classes.

Michael Mwakilasa, a parent, says when a student is attending school, most of the time gets comfortable with the environment especially, with classmates, schoolmates and the teachers as well.

“Transferring student to another may affect his/her performance because he/she has to start getting used to the new environment before he/she starts performing at his/her best,” he argues, saying on rare occasions, when the student has a jovial personality it’s easy for him/her to adjust quickly.

“For example, my two sons used to go to the same school, one was in Grade 5 and another in Grade 3. I moved them to another school. It took the youngest one a bit longer to adjust and cope with the new school environment. From getting used to new teachers to making new friends in class and transportation to and from school. On the other hand, his brother quickly coped with the changes despite a drop in performance,” he says

“If I had to do it all over again, I would have done more research, finding out everything about the intended new school, including academic performance of the school they would be shifting. I think this is what parents are supposed to do,” he says.

A Senior lecturer at the University of Dar es Salaam John Mwakyusa, agrees that moving students from one school to another affects students’ performance negatively.

“When a student is moved to a new school he/she needs time to adjust to the new environment, readjustment takes time and by the time she/he settles other students will be miles ahead. The trigger to transfer students is mostly from students themselves, from their friends or from parents,” he notes

“It is thus important that parents do thorough research before enrolling their children to a particular school. Parents need to collaborate with school management to monitor and address challenging issues affecting children. There is need to be open communication between the two parties for the betterment of the child,” he adds.

He advices that students should have their rights without compromising their moral, physical, mental and spiritual growth. Students can be transferred from one school to another for justified reasons such as health reasons, change of school management for the worse or when parents are required to relocate to another region or country.

Recalling his good old days in school, Dotto Mnyadi says for three years he enjoyed the company of his friends. “From standard one, we were all strangers and we learned to live under one roof. I never thought one day this company will be disbanded. We lived in rented house, one room and sitting room, we were four children with our maternal sister. Clearly my father had another plan to relocate to a more decent house. He had built his house and we were obliged to relocate,” he says.

“I never wanted to leave my old friends, we were doing quite so well for ourselves. My brother did not handle it, the minute we got transfer his performance dropped drastically. I was luck to make some new smart friends, and to blend in I had to prove to them that I was also smart. My bet was to be among the top 10 in overall results. My brother, however, lost to his football crew, he could not blend very well and studies become a challenge to cope,” recalls Dotto.

“Students get some difficulties in syllabus coverage, this may happen when the new student finds his fellow students are far in coverage of syllabus in different subjects so the new student would have to work very hard in order to update his notes and he should have to consult teachers for remedial classes. Additionally, students who transfer to another school take long to learn new school rules and regulations and to make new friends, all these may affect their academic performance,” he comments.

Machella says sometimes new students are exposed to new learning facilities which were not present in their former school therefore students would need extra time to be instructed on how to make use of the facilities.

Another teacher from Atlas School in Madale Reinhard Bonnke agrees with Machella that different schools have different syllabus coverage hence different time lines.

In most cases, the choice of which school a student should study is entirely the parent’s decision. Those studying in government schools sometimes don’t enjoy this privilege due to several reasons. On the other hand, the number of privately owned schools in the country has currently increased rapidly and this raises a challenging question: Which is the best school to enrol your children?

A Royal Elite School teacher Mathew Levy says parents have got themselves in the mid of this controversy and they keep on shifting their children from school to school in quest for quality education.

“Shifting students from one school to another may be as bad as it can be good for all the parties. In most cases, it is the students who fall victim of such decisions made by their parents. If a proper analysis and choice of a good school is not done, the students end up facing a lot of challenges in their new school.

For instance, it takes several days, weeks or even months for a student to get along with the environment and the teachers in the new school,” he adds.