Gunjur Online
Jul 18, 20172 min
Gunjur Senior Secondary School Results Analysis for Academic Year 2015/16
Education is often referred to as the key to success. At Gunjur Senior Secondary School, that success is in serious danger according to the results of Gambia Senior Secondary Schools Examination.
As published on our Sunday night edition, the report didn't give a good reading. Faced with such appalling results, one is compelled to ask: Who is responsible? What can be done to reverse this trend?Certainly someone must take responsibility.
Broadly speaking, everyone's to blame. That is, the students, their parents, the parent-teacher association, the teaching staff and the biggest share of blame goes to the principal, Mr Yaya Jobe. The buck stops with the head. If the results were all round better, Mr Jobe was going to get the credit although he doesn't teach.
There is no need for a knee-jerk reaction but Jobe must put his house in order and work with the PTA and the larger community to stop this woeful report from repeating itself.
At Grade 12, these students are young men and women and should know better that a Grade 12 certificate is the main foundation in their pursuance of education. They cannot afford a lacklustre approach to education and think that the world will be kind to them.
For their part, parents must take interests in their children's education. Paying school fees and buying uniforms are just a few obligations of a parent. They should visit their children's schools regularly to monitor progress and call for improvement where there is little. As major stakeholders, parents should invest in text books and educational resources where the school fails to provide them.
The Parent-Teacher Association should be fit for purpose and serve as an effective link between the families and the school.
To those teachers whose subjects record no passes at all, one wonders what they are teaching. The school must adopt stringent measures not to allow students to enter subjects in the final exams just for the sake of it.
There might be chronic under funding of the education sector but that doesn't exonerate the results at Gunjur Senior Secondary in our opinion.
In a school where majority of students failed in all subjects save, Government 63% and Islamic Studies 87%, the principal must ask difficult questions or the parents should ask: Is Yaya Jobe up to the task?
In the meantime, the community must own partial responsibility and find out what has gone wrong and what could be done to remedy the disaster from ever happening.