Overcrowded schools lower quality of education

If you did a survey, you will come to the realization that most of the schools that have over crowded classrooms produce poor grades compared to schools with a reasonable number of students. Overcrowded schools bring forth a number of detrimental effects that affect both student and teacher performance. The higher the number of students in a classroom, the lower the grades. With so many students packed into one classroom, a teacher might not be able to have one-on-one interaction with students that need assistance. It is hard for a teacher to dedicate enough time to the students that have problems with particular subjects since they are quite a big number of students that might need extra attention. This will therefore lead to poor scores in class work. Cases of indiscipline are usually high in overcrowded schools. Students can easily huddle together to misbehave behind the teacher’s back thus hindering student performance. Josephine Kabera, a teacher at Star School in Kabuga says that one of the major causes of low grades in schools is large numbers of students. “When a teacher has a very huge number of students, it becomes hard for him to give them enough attention. So he might choose to instead focus on the few serious ones. This will lead to failure of the majority who don’t concentrate in class,” teacher Josephine says. Kabera also mentioned that teachers constantly struggle to maintain order in an overcrowded classroom. Students take advantage of this problem and misbehave simply because they know the teacher can’t see them. “Overcrowding has also increased the vice of copying in class,” she explains. “When the students are so many, they will sit close to themselves since there is limited space. In the end, this will lead to increase in failure cases since students will be relying on fellow friends to copy without them reading,” she adds. Overcrowded classrooms diminish the quantity and quality of teaching and learning with serious implications for attainment of educational goals. Mugabe Mark, a student says that an overcrowded classroom is a big hindrance to academic excellence because it comes with a lot of negative implications. “The teachers get stressed and tired because of dealing with many students some of whom can be a big pain. Students also don’t get enough attention from the teachers pertaining their class work hence negatively affecting their grades,” added Mugabe. Schools shouldn’t take in more students than they can accommodate to avoid the declining standard of education. m.kaitesi@yahoo.com