How can we help struggling pupils?

There's nothing wrong when a student repeats class so as to obtain a grade that is adequate for the next level of education or course to be pursued. However, the problem comes when repetition is imposed on students for commercial reasons or for popularizing a school. This is what many schools do especially the private ones here in Kenya. They only want to register only the above-average students so that when results for national exams are released, they emerge tops. This is why currently, the local dailies in Kenya are awash with advertisment of private schools as they brag of the latest results released by the Minister.

The minister is justified in ensuring that education is accessible to all. However, the ministry should not contradict itself by threatening to sack or demote teachers who don't perform since the measure for performance of teachers lies with the performance in exams by their students. This is why teachers are compelled to force dunderheads to repeat classes.

Repeating a class is not meant to punish but to furnish a person for the future. I was a teacher and have always wondered why people hate to repeat when they are just reaping what they have sown. I have never believed and will never believe in mass promotion as it's encouraging quantity instead of quality service delivery. Even in our work places, we have appraisal where those who excel in the execution of their duties are rewarded and promoted and those who don't are reprimanded and demoted. Why do we do that? Why don't we promote every staff in our establishment at the same time? Repeating ensures that one learns what is to be learnt that is required in the next level without which there will be a breakdown along the way.Let's see repeating as a feedback instead of setback in our quest to ensure quality service delivery instead of just delivering any service. If you need excellent products and service you must ensure quality assurance.

I don't think his action was right, because this will discourage the pupils from being hardworking. And the pupils will have in mind that "no matter my grade, i'll still be promoted afterall".

Pupils who could not make it to the next level should be encouraged by KNOWING the area of the childs weakness, his/her after school activities, and other things that can help.

I had to repeat primary 1 during my infancy days. Boy, didn't I deserve it? ;) Well, to put it mildly, back in the day, I was a mission to self-destruct and wreck my entire future because of my love for cars. Every morning when I left home, along with another play mate, we would go into town and 'drive' abandoned cars, pretending we were professional drivers. All of this was done at the expense of my studies. At the end of the day, I paid the price by repeating primary 1. A lesson was learnt after this happened. The moral of this story is that, repeating a class can be a wake up call to pupils or students.

Repeating only makes sense where there is a single academic defined end point that all children should reach. However, this is a very narrow way of defining education. For instance, children's maturity develops at different rates. Research shows that boys often develop several years behind girls (Kindlon & Thompson, 2000). It also assumes that education is merely about academic competition - where there are winners and losers. Surely education is about accompanying children's exploration of the world around them and helping them understand true values of tolerance and respect for all abilities and differences. Education should not be defined by winners and losers (although some children may well become 'winners', often because of economic opportunities that separate them from others but are not of their own making).

This will adversely affect the performance of students as no serious student wants to fail.The moment students are promoted irrespective of their grades will mark the beginning of modern educational decadence.Examination has played a very pivotal role in assessing the ability and performance of individuals be at work,competition (such as football,athletics etc).It is an exercise to test the ability of what one has learnt or claims to know.Workers undergo different types of examinations before promotion; apprentice goes through a form of examination before getting freedom and football teams do their examinations in form of competition to ascertain who wins.He who passes is a winner! Those who repeat class should not see it as a failure but as an opportunity to get prepared better and excel.This buttress the adage that failure is the pillar of success beacuse he who fails may want to retrace his step for better future.

I Think Re-Exam Is The Best Solution Of The Pupils Those Failed The Exam, And We Can Say Some Students Are Rely on Re-Exams Every Term And They Didnt Work Hard Probably It Depends On The Effort Of The Student.
If The Student is Active it Will Give Wake-Up Call, And Other Side If The Student is Lazy it Will Give Nothing..
In My Childhood I Failed One Exam I Requested The authorities Of The School To Offer Me Re-Exam..Fortunately ,I Got Re-Exam Sucessfuly And it Gave Me Wake-Up Alarm.
I Think The Minister Decision Will Effect Many Students Who Are Still Love Madly To work Hard And If Allah ,
I Would Like To Call On The Minister To Give A Chance The Students As To Rebuild Their Grades
Thanks







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Well done Kenya. If a pupil should fail an exam it doesn't make him or her dull because as far as i know examination is not the true test of knowledge.
Why even blame the pupil in the first place when the some of their parents occupy them with house chores and parenting of their siblings. So you will all agree with me it doesn't take a dull pupil to fail an exam but bad parenting.It's unfortunate most of them are just victims of circumstance.
Rather than spending one year of trying to mentally force thesame concepts into the pupil instead do a back-trace of why he or she failed in the first place.

I went through the Kenyan education system and repeating classes seems rampant. While I did not repeat a class myself, I know of many pupils who I was with in the same class at some point who repeated and the psychological effect it had on them. Imagine how a young boy feels when his cohort is ahead by one class, the psychological trauma and its effect on his performance in school after that. It does more harm than good I think.

I also think the strategic technocrats behind the Kenyan education system have not put in place a proper framework to identify properly children with special needs and who will need special schools early enough. This is what happens in United Kingdom model, for instance. Having said that, the Kenyan education system still needs a lot of investment to ensure every region gets same standards. For example pupils in Schools in the capital city Nairobi get better education than their counterparts in the villages.

I believe the real question is does repeating a class in primary school add value to the child? Is it some times necessary?
In lower primary - I do not see the necessity for repeating classes at all as any knowledger and skills missed can be acquired later without inconveniencing any one. In upper primary school, however, say where advanced topics of algebra have been introduced, repeating a class can be a panacea as topics not well grasped can be reviewed and made relevant for further studies even as far as upper secondary.
I wonder what the real motive of the Kenyan minister lies - : is he simply being copy cat to the UK system, is he trying to save his goverment some funds, or simply be a populist politician?
I had my primary education in Kampala's Shimoni in the late 1970,s and still have lots of praise for Mr Joseph Mawanda whose class had the brightest - both repeaters and non-repeaters.

It seems that the Kenyan minister has been duped by the British. The British want to export their dubious primary and secondary education system to Africa. In Britain, no one is held back. Pupils proceed regardless of their performance.

In Britain, education is free and compulsary to the age of 16. Yet there are numerous stories of pupils who leave school at the of 16 who can barely read and write. These pupils are incapable of doing simple arethematic. Needless to say, their chances of getting a decent job are poor. Can anyone honestly say that these pupils were done a favour by letting them proceed regardless of what they had learned - or not ?

In Africa, we should emulate the Asians. In most Asian countries, pupils proceed to the next class on passing an end of year examination. In most of these countries, a huge industry of after school private tuition has grown. There is great competition among the pupils. None of this competition has damaged the pupils psychologically.

Pupils from Japan, South Korea, China, India etc are now performing much better than their European and North American counterparts in mathematics and science.

If we Africans want to catch up with the rest of the world , we must copy the Asians.

We can see how that system in the western has left the kids unable to read properly and care less about studying for exams. Their attitude is that they get promoted anyway.
Why try to fix what is not broke. Failing gives individuals a kick up the backside and forces them to try and do well next time.