Principal says 15 students passed from Honiara High
FIFTEEN form six students of Honiara High School were selected to do form seven this year, the school’s principal Johnny Maetia says.
Nine will do arts while six for science, he added.
Mr Maetia was responding to the widespread public criticism of his administration after the results published in the media last weekend showed no Honiara High School students making it to form seven.
“Parents and guardians should differentiate between the meaning of ‘results on hold’ and ‘no students have passed’,” Mr Maetia said.
“Thereare two things that need to be clarified regarding what would make results on hold.
“One is exam fees, which parents have paid at the treasury, and outstanding school fees.
“With outstanding school fees, it is the principalwho will request to the National Education and StandardUnit (NESU) to hold students’ result. But in this case, I did not make any requests.
“And it is surprising why NESU is holding on to theseresults when I did not request them to do so and I believe all students have paid their exam fees before they sat for their exams,” Mr Maetia said.
He added he does not see any reason why these results have to be withheld, which he said caused an issue to students and their fee payers over the past days in the media.
Mr Maetia said he would not deny the fact that the school administration has failed to live up to expectations and that teacher absenteeism had been a contributing factor to the outcome of the results.
He said those who complained about their Internal Assessments (IAs),assuming theirs were not handed, resulting in them not making it through, can follow the process of filling up forms requesting reassessment.
“There is a process in place where students are given 14 days to apply for reassessment if they think their result does not reflect their work.
“I encourage them to follow this process rather than making wild allegations and blaming the tutors and the administration,” Mr Maetia added.
While admitting the failure of the school management and teacher absenteeism as issues affecting the school,he stressed that these happened due to external pressures.
Mr Maetia said he will not blame teachers for their absenteeism and the problem of staff not working together and the ineffective school management and school board for the results that came out.
He stated even his administration is powerless and can’t do much when the school authority can’t attend to issues the school board brings to their attention.
He added outside interference into how the school has been managed is one serious factor that affects the administration of the school and caused divisions.
He said Honiara High school has 41 staff and the school had only 10 houses.
“The school has to meet the housing allowances of the remaining staff.
“How could you expect a teacher to prepare lessons for the next day when they live under a different roof or even don’t live at a proper home?
“Teachers are not like unskilled workers who sleep, wake up and head to work. They need a good shelter to prepare lessons for their students,” Mr Maetia said.
He said despite these challenges the school will continue to do its best to ensure students achieve their goals.
“The result demonstrated despite all these problems, students still get good results and passed on to form seven.”
He added what parents need to understand is that Honiara High School is only a transitional school that caters only for senior forms.
“Therefore to shape a child in those senior forms is quite difficult because who they are tells of how they have been through over their primary and junior secondary years.
“So if a good student comes into HHSC, then good too is expected to go out from the school. But if garbage is coming in, then garbage too will be expected to go out afterwards,” Mr Maetia said.
Meanwhile, director of NESU Linda Watehas reconfirmed that some students of Honiara High have passed to do form seven.
However, the issue was with the late payment of their fees which costs each student a total of $960 if paid in time or $1120 if paid after 1st of August 2014 which happened in this case of Honiara High.
Mrs Wate said this was the reason why they have to withhold students’ results.
She said some students pay before the due date but the bulk of the students whom she believed go through the school to pay resulted in late payment which affected the results.
Meanwhile, the NESU director said parents should not complain because when NESU did placements accordingly, they pushed in their children for enrolment which increased the number beyond the required number at the school.
“That too is a contributing factor which the school admin should be accountable for in accepting students when NESU had already made placements according to students’ aggregates and choices,” Mrs Wate said.
She added there were only a few cases that students have to be placed to schools they did not choose because their aggregate did not match and the schools they choose are already filled with top students.
By DANIEL NAMOSUAIA