Does repeating a class help anyway?

A debate has spread over the years as to whether making students repeat a class is of any positive consequence or not. Both educational and non-educational arguments have been advanced in factual and sentimental perspectives. So, is it ‘educational’ to make a student repeat a class because of poor performance with the hope of making him or her do better in the coming year? To understand the main motivation behind repeating classes, let us interrogate the reasons as to why some students fail; assuming that poor performance is the sole reason why schools ask students to repeat. Some students perform grimly because they are not intellectually gifted. In this case, there is not much one can do to change or improve performance so repeating becomes trivial. Other students fail because they are too playful at school. As a result, the effort put into their studies is minimal resulting in low achievement. A small section of students joins school when they are underage. They tend not to perform well until a certain age when they are mature enough to handle academic material for a particular class. Overall, students who may not have performed well because of other reasons save for the fact that they are mentally challenged may be successful when asked to repeat the same grade. Though repeating may work for them, it tortures their juvenile minds as they see their peers move ahead of them in academics and life achievements in general. Decisions to make students repeat classes should be case specific and not criteria based. Otherwise, more often than not, it does more harm than good. More so, pupils should also start school at the right age. znyamosi@yahoo.com