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Allow Tanga students to sit for examinations
2007-08-13 08:37:59
By Editor
Last week, it was reported from Tanga that 64 students would not be able to sit for their National Form Four Examinations because a teacher had apparently failed to submit the money he had collected as examination fees to the National Examinations Council of Tanzania.
Much as it sounds to be true, on the face of it, we are tempted to wish that the story is wrong altogether, because one can`t imagine a responsible teacher doing that to his students.
If it is true, then the whole saga implies that at school level, we are now having a cadre of irresponsible mavericks who have no qualms about conning not only the students but their parents as well.
We do not wish to judge the teacher who is alleged to be at the centre of the saga, as the police are already conducting investigations needed to institute a court case, where the whole truth shall be known.
At the moment, it suffices to say that the whole administrative process at the school where the children are studying is flawed because it didn`t require the students—and the school administration—to realize that the fees have not been remitted when things have already reached a point of no return.
Does it mean that the teacher who is alleged to have squandered the money had no superior?
Was nobody making a close follow up to know whether the money had been remitted to NACTE on time?
Putting all in a nutshell, it seems there is more to it than the eye can meet.
Turning to the students, they have banked their future aspirations and ambitions to the annual school timetable, which in this case indicates that they have to sit for —and hopefully—pass the National Form Four Examinations.
So we can imagine how they felt when they were officially informed that they had wasted a whole year because they would not be able to sit for national examinations.
We can all be sure that they felt the whole world crashing on them, and indeed, it had done so.
To add salt to the wound, a high ranking NACTE official, upon being contacted by a newspaper, stated that there was no chance for the affected students to sit for this year’s examinations as the deadline had already passed.
Again, we hope that this official was misquoted, otherwise it cannot be understood why he rushed to give that reply, knowing fully well that laws are made for people and not vice versa.
It is costing parents and this nation a lot of money to educate our children.
The current national strategy for education has now gone above prioritizing primary education.
The current goal is to attain universal secondary school education.
We wonder how this target can be attained if both an irresponsible teacher, if it is indeed the case, and insensitive bureaucracy, are allowed to stand into the future career of young students.
We therefore appeal to the National Examination Council, and by proxy, the Minister of Education, to use their discretion to solve the problem at once, so that the 64 students are urgently registered for examinations and relieved of unnecessary tension so that they can adequately prepare for the exams.
We hope that such a decision shall not come at the eleventh hour.
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