Mass absenteeism in Secondary Schools: Does the cause lie in the syllabus?

Every year at this time, we hear of the significant increase in absenteeism among Form V and Form VI students.  Various reasons have been put forward and chances are that the same phenomenon will recur next year.

One possible reason is that the solutions being proposed (e.g., sms messages to parents etc) do not address the systemic dimensions of the problem. 

In the 1970’s, when I was a secondary school student, Form V classes at the Royal College Curepipe were full until almost a week before the School Certificate (SC) examinations.  One possible reason for this was that students were required to complete the SC syllabus in one year (and not two as is the case currently).  In English Literature, for instance, we had to study four texts in Form IV followed by a set of four different texts in Form V.

In view of the above, the question that we need to ask ourselves is whether the SC syllabus has not been diluted by being spread over two years.   This dilution has resulted in reduced academic challenge among our students and in a feeling that attending classes in the second half of the year will only add to the boredom.   Average students have been known to pass their SC / O-Levels at the end of Form IV.  

The same phenomenon is observed at the HSC level.  HSC students would probably be better off by being required to take HSC exams in May-June instead of October-December.  This will automatically resolve the problem of absenteeism as from the middle of the second year. 

Thus, if we agree with the above analysis, it would appear that one possible solution to the problem of absenteeism would be to introduce some flexibility in the system and allow students to take SC/HSC examinations earlier, if they are confident that they have completed the program.

On a different note, while we note a dilution of the syllabus at the upper secondary level – also evidenced by the large number of students scoring 8 units at SC and 3 A’s at HSC level  –  we are confronted with a blatant wasteful overloading of the primary school syllabus.  

The syllabus imposed on primary school children can be reduced by almost half by removing items that are either useless or would anyway be taught at the secondary level.  This reduction in load will result more time for primary school teachers to organize activities to ensure genuine learning and skills development rather than adopt short cuts like mechanical rote learning devoid of real understanding of underlying concepts.  This measure will more importantly reduce the need for private tuition, reduce the failure rate at the primary level and allow for a more balanced development of the child’s personality.

Published in Le Mauricien of 24 June,  2011