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Dar pupils will miss secondary education
2007-01-04 10:02:55
By Pascal Shao
It`s now official. Approximately one third of prospective students, who had passed primary school examinations in Dar es Salaam at the end of last year, won’t make it to the secondary level.
The Guardian reliably learnt yesterday that only 8, 248 successful candidates, representing 24 per cent of the total number of those who passed- 33,775 shall immediately proceed to the next level by joining the existing public secondary schools.
Another batch of 12, 825 successful candidates will follow soon after completion of 285 new classrooms, which the Dar es Salaam regional authorities hope will be ready by March.
Even after that has been done, 10, 768 prospective candidates who passed the exam will be left out. This makes roughly a third of all who passed the Primary School National Examination this year.
To curb the problem, the government has appealed to local development partners and other education stakeholders to intervene so that the left out school children don’t miss their lifetime opportunity.
Dar es Salaam Regional Commissioner Abbas Kandoro, told The Guardian by telephone yesterday that currently, 13 secondary schools are under construction and are at the last stages of completion.
He said 47, 459 examination candidates had sat for their Standard Seven final examinations last year, out of whom 33,775 passed the exam, making 71 per cent of the total number.
He said after the completion of the 13 schools, 2,520 students who are already selected would then be enrolled, making a total of 10, 768 students.
In spite of that pending opportunity, the region is still having a total of 23,007 successful pupils who will remain at home until their fate is determined.
The regional commissioner told The Guardian that efforts were under way to contain the situation as local donors had made some donations.
Kandoro said 13,824 bags of cement and 60 tonnes of steel had already been donated to supplement government efforts.
He added: “I was told this morning that the Wazo Hill Cement Factory has donated 100 tonnes of cement.”
Kandoro said that with the donation, the region will be able to construct 285 new classrooms.
He appealed to members of the public to assist the government complete the school buildings currently under construction by March so that more students would be enrolled.
The 285 classrooms, with each accommodating 45 students per room, will allow a further intake of 12, 825 students, who will increase the government school intake capacity to 23, 545 students, thus reducing the deficit to 10, 230 students.
The regional commissioner said a total of 65,000 students would be enrolled in the year 2008, being more than double this year’s presumed intake.
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