When he was a student, Canisius Habyarimana, always struggled to make sure he passed all subjects to earn a promotion to the next class at the end of the year.

His journey from primary through secondary school was tough, but he braved long nights of revision and discussions to complete it. 

"Sometimes I couldn’t go to bed before making sure he had memorised everything in the notebooks. There was tough competition and everyone did their best to excel in all subjects. Promotion was on merit and repeating classes was the only option whenever one had failed to make the mark,” says the Rwamagana-based secondary school teacher.

Habyarimana recalls that, to get promoted to the next class at O-level, for instance, one had to score 50 per cent in languages and science subjects.

However, the situation is different today. What was a do-or-die scenario in his time has changed, and now students generally have the green light to be promoted regardless of their performance.

It is in a bid to promote universal education and curb the dropout rates among school-going students, that this ‘Automatic Promotion’ policy was adopted in public schools in 2001.

According to a survey by education activists, since 2004, the repetition rate for students in lower secondary dropped from 19 per cent to six per cent, while the dropout rate for primary schools went down from 14 per cent to five per cent.

"We are told that universal education is a fundamental human right and essential tool to achieve development, but we also realised that promoting students who have failed is also abuse of such a right,” Habyarimana notes.

"Some students are so weak that the only solution to help them is to compel them to repeat so that they grasp concepts better before going to the next class,” he adds.

Mixed take on the policy

The issue of automatic promotion continues to raise conflicting views among stakeholders, with some insisting that teachers should play a bigger role to ensure that every student performs well and gets promoted, while others say that if a student fails, they have to repeat classes.

Isaac Munyakazi, the new State Minister for Primary and Secondary Education, has weighed in on the debate vouching for the revision of the policy on automatic promotion of students. He says that promotion should be earned.

"Suggestions that automatic promotion may be affecting the quality of education may be true. As a professional educator, I recommend that a student who deserves to be promoted should be the one to be promoted,” Munyakazi said.

"Yes, teachers have a big role to play to make sure a big number of students are promoted to the next class, but they must play that role accurately and cautiously,” Munyakazi said a recent interview with The New Times.

He said, when a teacher determines that a learner has not grasped enough knowledge to be promoted, repeating a class should be recommended to enable the learner progress in tandem with knowledge acquired in the course of study.

The minister suggests that the manner in which the policy is being implemented is liable to misinterpretation, and there is, therefore, need for its revision.

"Education that can contribute to country’s development is that which seeks to impart knowledge and skills in learners regardless of how long it takes. Learners need to graduate with competencies that will help them contribute to socio-economic development of the country,” said Munyakazi.

Eduard Munyamariza, the chairperson of Rwanda Civil Society Platform, says that the issue of promoting students without basing on their competency hampers quality education and argues that while more numbers of Rwandan children in school should be encouraged, quality must not be compromised.

"If the quality is effective and all the students are promoted, that is fine. Our concern is not to have them repeat or get promoted, but rather to give them quality education,” he says.

"Some educators used to say that quality and quantity cannot go together but we should look at quality first, education for all without quality would mean nothing at all,” he adds.

According to Munyamariza, now that schools have started to implement the competency-based curriculum, there is hope that things will change in the near future.

Bur for quality education to be realised, Munyamariza also says, other issues such as the school feeding, the class ratio, incentives geared towards improving teachers’ welfare, language proficiency among teachers and regular supervision by the ministry of education, among others, should be addressed.

But the Minister for Education, Dr Papias Malimba Musafiri, recently told The New Times that while there could be laxity on the part of some students, repeating classes should not be solely singled out as the main issue.

"I can admit that the competition among school children is not that tight as it was during my time or your time, some reasons are based on the ICT which distract some students, but we cannot encourage them to avoid ICT, it is time we changed the methodology,” he said.

"We cannot just build competition among our students; that is a colonial way of doing things, where the teacher had a specific number of students to be promoted. Competition among our children cannot be encouraged by making them repeat classes,” said the minister.

"We need to change our approach and make students the centre of teaching and learning, students are curious and need to be supported to discover and innovate, it is only the system that needs changing, we need to carry out research on this and do self-evaluation to identify the best methodology to use to capture the attention of students,” he added.

Teachers, parents’ views

"The policy discourages competition because a student knows that they will be promoted even before the year starts. But now students are promoted when they have mastered no subjects. We even promote those with 30 per cent or less,” says Fabien Habumugisha, a teacher at GS Kamuhoza in Musanze District.

He argues that the policy affects learning from primary and negatively impacts the whole learning process.

"In the end, students are facilitated to get secondary school certificates because the performance doesn’t matter. In case of any failure, the school gets warning letters from the Ministry of Education saying we have been careless, yet it is a result of automatic promotion,” says Habumugisha.

While teachers are encouraged to pay special attention and put in more efforts to support all the students to get promoted, some teachers say it is still hard when even teachers are not allowed to punish them when they misbehave or repeatedly fail to understand dispensed lessons.

"Today, a teacher has no way to help them (students). They know they will be promoted no matter how bad the results are. Students are also aware that nobody will punish them so that they can correct their mistakes. I think students have misunderstood their rights,” says Thomas Butera, a teacher at GS Mucha in Rwamagana District.

In primary schools, teachers say that some students have gone on to be promoted from one class to another, for instance from P1 to P2, without exhibiting the ability to read the alphabet. This, they say, affects their studies in P2 because it is when pupils learn clusters (Ibihekane) and they fail to learn them given that they don’t even know the alphabet.

"Even because of the high student-teacher ratio and the short time a teacher has to spend per subject, we are not able to attend to every student as we are supposed to do,” says Fabiola Batamuliza, a primary teacher at ES Rwamagana.

"The only way this can be solved is to give schools the right to promote those who are competent and make those who fail repeat. Teachers are committed to providing quality education but automatic promotion is killing the whole learning process,” says Batamuliza.

For Jean Baptiste Shumbusho, a father of three, automatic promotion has encouraged laxity among students, teachers and parents.

"Promoting students automatically has a negative impact on performance; it has discouraged competition and studying hard. But if a student failed and was made to repeat, they put in more efforts so that it does not happen again,” he says.

"Teachers have also relaxed and they don’t put in a lot of effort because they know that only less than five per cent will probably repeat even when half of the class has failed. Also, parents are not following up their children because they see them promoted and maybe think they are performing well,” he adds.

"It would be fine if students could be helped to study well and be promoted automatically with good performance. However, this is hard given variation in the intellectual capacity of students. I took my child to a private school after I realised he was performing poorly in a public school yet he was getting promoted. Educators should understand that making a child repeat a class is actually helping them to learn better,” says Fabiola umutoni, another parent.

******

STUDENTS HAVE THEIR SAY

Angie Ingabire, a first year student at University of RwandaThe knowledge one acquires in their current class matters a lot and shows whether they are capable of moving to the next class or not. So, they should be assessed to confirm that they will be competitive even outside school. Encouraging automatic promotion is like promoting incompetence.

--

Joseph Mugisha, a student at Kigali Institute of ManagementI don’t support the automatic promotion policy. First, some students will only work hard if there are some regulations concerning promotions. On the contrary, if they are allowed to move to the next level without necessarily riding on their academic achievements, it will promote the culture of laziness, which will impede the development of our country.

--

Immaculate Uwimana, a senior two studentI believe there are some students who are slow learners and making them repeat for failing to hit a certain mark will make the situation even worse. Promoting them automatically will ensure that they proceed to other training institutes that help nurture what they are good at.

--

Simon Kwizera, a student at Apaper Complex, KicukiroI think it’s good because it minimises cases of students being overcrowded in one class, which can make teaching hard for the teacher handling such a class. However, teachers should do a follow-up on those students who failed to hit minimum grades and work with them to ensure that they don’t relax.