By Doreen Mokgolo
It took the intervention of the Gauteng education department’s Springs district office to get more than 40 learners who failed Grade 11 promoted to Grade 12.
The move comes after parents alleged that the Springs Technical Secondary School intentionally failed the learners so that it could have smaller Grade 12 classes to improve its matric pass rate.
Learners alleged the school deputy principal told them, while writing their final year exams, that he already had a list of 100 learners who would be promoted to Grade 12.
A parent of one of the learners, Kgaogelo Modise, told Scrolla.Africa most of the Grade 11 learners failed English, a subject which they had passed in the previous three terms.
“We felt it was odd that such a high number of learners failed the subject and wanted to appeal and see the scripts, but they [the school] refused,” Modise said.
“We decided to fight by appealing the results, [but] the school still rejected the request, and we then decided to approach the [Gauteng education department’s] Springs district office for intervention,” she said.
The district progressed the learners who qualified but the school still refused to move them to the higher grade, citing overcrowding.
Steve Mabona, the spokesperson for the Gauteng education department, said all qualifying learners were eventually moved to Grade 12 through the district’s intervention.
“The … school was instructed to immediately allocate them classes accordingly.”
Mabona said they have numerous intervention strategies put in place, including morning and afternoon classes and internal Secondary School Improvement Programme (SSIP) classes.
With SSIP, learners receive extra tuition in the following subjects: Maths, Maths Literacy, Physical Science, Life Sciences, Accounting, English First Additional Language, Economics, Business Studies, History and Geography.
Pictured above: Springs Technical Secondary School.
Image source: Supplied
