EDUCATION NGO WELCOMES DECISION

The Civil Society Coalition for Quality Basic Education has welcomed the decision by government to rescind its decision to bar students from community day secondary schools into national secondary schools.

CSCQBE Acting Executive Director, Mr. Benedicto Kondowe, says the development will allow students from CDSS’s and private secondary schools attain quality education.

About two thousand students from CDSS’s and private secondary school are to be admitted into national government secondary schools this year.

In October 2010, the Ministry of Education issued a statement regarding admission of students into public secondary schools.

Through the statement, the ministry said that students would only be admitted into public secondary schools on merit, as one way of ensuring high standards of secondary school education.

But some education-oriented NGO’s like the Civil Society Coaltion for Basic Quality Education were against the decision.

Mr. Benedicto Kondowe is the Acting Executive Director of the NGO, and says the decision was discriminatory.

But according to the Ministry of Education spokesperson, Miss Lindiwe Chide, says the ministry rescinded the decision in December last year after consultation with stakeholders in the education sector.

And Mr. Kondowe says the development will give an opportunity to bright students from community day secondary schools attain quality education.
Close to two thousand students from community day secondary and private secondary schools will be admitted into public secondary secondary schools following this development.