EASTERN PROVINCE RWAMAGANA — Head teachers whose schools will not return good results in national examinations will be sacked, the district mayor has warned. Valens Ntezirembo sounded the warning while addressing head teachers, representatives of parents’ committees and sector executive secretaries, over the weekend, at Avega Center. The district performance in ‘A’ level results rose from 51.1 percent in 2006 to 87.8 in 2007, Ntezirembo said. However, the decline in performance in primary and the ordinary level (Troncum) sections will not be tolerated, he warned. Despite emerging the first in the recently released senor six exams countrywide, Rwamagana performed poorly in last year’s primary and ordinary level examinations. The performance of primary schools declined from 28.4% in 2006 to 28.1 percent 2007, while it declined from 24.9 percent in 2006 to 13.5 in 2007 for senior three. In some schools in the district all students who sat for 2007 national exams failed, Mwurire and Ruhunda Primary Schools, and Ecole Lycee de Lac Muhazi are some of the examples, Ntezirembo wondered, demanding explanations. Responding to the mayor, the headmaster of Ruhunda Primary School explained that their pupils were their pioneer candidates, a factor which could probably have led to the failure. He however, said that the school had taken a decision to always take pupils through past papers in order to familiarise them with national examination setting. During the four-hour meeting, participants examined the possible causes of poor performance and designed measures to reverse the trend. Some head teachers attributed poor performance to long distance commuted by pupils to reach their respective schools, saying pupils reach school exhausted and yet they don’t do night preps. Other factors partly to blame for poor results, according to head teachers include: irregular attendance of pupils hence missing some lessons, lack of teaching aids, poor evaluation due to teacher-pupil ratio and demoralised teachers, among others. The head teachers claimed that abrupt change of examination setting was also to blame for failure of students; and called for collaboration between examiners and teachers. The mayor stressed the need to strengthen education, saying it is the backbone of development. He warned that primary pupils who absent themselves on market days would be rounded up and rocked behind bars. The mayor said parents of such children would also face punitive measures. He challenged parents to inculcate discipline among their children. Alphonsine Murekatete, the district vice mayor in charge of social affairs, urged school head teachers to put more emphasis on languages -French and English for students to understand questions. Meanwhile, Jean Batiste Ndanyuzwe the vice mayor in charge of economic affairs, said teachers would be among the first priorities to get exotic cows under the one cow one family-as a way of motivation. He called on head teachers to embrace government programme of economic revolution. Ends
