OVERCROWDED classrooms are a normal sight today as one enters public schools around the country because of the free education policy but that has its disadvantages, an official says.
A classroom should not have more than 40 students, unfortunately there are many schools with over 50 students in a room, a senior teacher from Papa Primary School, Joyce Vaguia, said. She said like most of the schools around the country, Papa Primary and Elementary schools have had a teacher to student ratio of 1 to 50, or more, for almost 30 years. “Students in a packed classroom will find it hard to concentrate because of many reasons,” she said. Vaguia said the lack of concentration and participation and insufficient materials are some of the problems faced due to overcrowding and the government should look at addressing these issues before amending the free education policy. She said free education was good because it helped to give all children their basic rights to have an education but that education must be of quality with all the resources and space available, as well as special attention given to students. She said from experience it was quite difficult to give students special or individual attention because they were too many. “I always love the idea of having a teacher-to-student interview to find their weaknesses and help them, but nowadays we do not have that time for it anymore,” Vaguia said. She said the school was overcrowded with minimal resources and the teachers there tried to manage with whatever little resources they received from the government and went out to ask for help. Comments are closed.
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