Form-VI students: Govt makes U-turn
Dar es Salaam. The government yesterday reversed its decision to transfer 48 Form Six students from special high schools to ordinary boarding schools over underperformance.
In a letter sent to the regional administrative secretaries last week, the government said the affected students had scored Division III in their second term school examinations.
“They have, therefore, lost qualifications to continue studying in schools accommodating students with special talents. They were supposed to retain their performance through schools and national examinations in order to remain in respective schools,” reads a letter in part.
The letter was signed by Dr Dorothy Gwajima on behalf of the permanent secretary in the President’s Office Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG).
However, the minister of state in the President’s Office, Regional Administration and Local Government (PO-RALG), Mr Selemani Jaffo, told The Citizen’s sister paper, Mwananchi, that the decision had been reversed.
“They will no longer be relocated to ordinary boarding schools as decided. The government has overturned the decision after consultations,” he said in a telephone interview. He said the PO-RALG permanent secretary had been directed to instruct respective schools admitting talented students to prepare special programme that will improve education capabilities of the students. Mr Jaffo said though it was the first time in the country’s history for such a decision to be taken, noting however, it intended to protect the status of schools.
The government was attached with a list of names of students, special schools, regions of the students and ordinary schools at which they were relocated.
The list shows that Kilakala High School located in Morogoro Region has 11 students and Msalato Girls High School situated in Dodoma Region has 10 students.
Other schools, regions and respective number of students in bracket are; Kibaha High School (Coast Region-8); Mzumbe High School (Morogoro Region-8); Tabora Boys and Tabora Girls High School (Tabora Region-4 each); Ilboru High School (Arusha Region-2) and Kismiri (Arusha Region-1).
Chief Executive officer of the Consortium for Independent Education Providers in Sub Saharan African, CIEPSSA Benjamini Nkonya said didn’t relocation of the students or their retention.
He was of the views that the 48 students had to be relocated to the Vocational Education and Training Authorities (Veta) and apprenticeship institutions where they would acquire vocational skills.
“Our problem is that we immensely believe in formal education. But, developed and industrialized countries in Europe didn’t develop their economies through formal education, rather they did so through vocational and apprenticeship skills,” he said.
