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FAILED PUPILS 'PAY TO GET PROMOTION'

IN TROUBLE: Alfred Maubane High School acting principal Amos Motheogane says he is investigating allegations that pupils pay bribes to get promoted to the next grade. Pic. Bathini Mbatha. 10/02/2010. © Unknown
IN TROUBLE: Alfred Maubane High School acting principal Amos Motheogane says he is investigating allegations that pupils pay bribes to get promoted to the next grade. Pic. Bathini Mbatha. 10/02/2010. © Unknown

A HIGH school teacher has claimed her colleagues are taking bribes from failed pupils who want to be promoted to the next grade.

According to the teacher, pupils at Alfred Maubane High School in Maubane village near Hammanskraal, North West, pay between R150 and R200 for a pass report.

To prove her claims, the teacher showed Sowetan the school's 2009 schedule of results which she said was rigged. Some of the original entries have been altered with a pen to reflect a pass mark.

In one instance the schedule showed that a Grade 11 pupil had failed but her report indicated that she had passed.

In the schedule the pupil failed mathematics (having recorded 0-29percent) but her report shows she passed (her mark was between 30-39percent).

"The results on the schedule do not match those on the pupil's report which proves that the pupil was promoted," she said.

According to the teacher, a colleague panicked when some pupils started bragging to their failed peers about paying bribes to be promoted.

"He then wiped the original database off the school's computer. Luckily I had a copy," she said.

A Grade 10 pupil scored zero percent for Setswana first language but was promoted to Grade 11 though the school policy states that a pupil who failed a mother tongue should not be promoted to the next grade.

Pupils who spoke to Sowetan on condition of anonymity said their peers from other local schools teased them, saying their school was an adult learning centre because very few pupils passed.

A Grade 10 pupil said: "Pupils are repeating the same grades up to seven times. What really puzzles me is how come four pupils in the same class achieved the same marks for the same subject. We know that our results are manipulated but there is nothing we can do about it."

Confronted with the claims, the school's acting principal, Amos Matheogane, denied there was corruption and fraud in the passing and failing of pupils. But he declined to produce the results schedule.

"I will investigate the matter and then contact you with the results," Matheogane said.

Provincial education department spokesperson Charles Raseala said they would send officials to the school to investigate the matter.

"The sale of reports is fraud and an offence punishable with dismissal because it constitutes gross misconduct," Raseala said.

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