Challenges Faced by Primary School Teachers in Implementing the Automatic Promotion Policy at a School in the Zambezi Region

Abstract

Prior to independence in 1990, learners were expected to meet all the pass requirements of a given grade before proceeding to the next grade level as a matter of policy. Learners who failed a grade were to repeat at the same or different school. In the case where parents of the learner chose to take their kid to a different school, such a learner was to go with a transfer letter, clearly stating the status of the learner, signed by the school principal or someone designated by him. It did not matter how many times the learner failed and repeated a grade. What was required is that each learner should meet the pass requirements of a grade before being allowed to proceed to the next grade. At independence, a new policy called automatic or social promotion was introduced in the education system of Namibia as part of the education reform. This policy, as the name suggests, requires a learner who failed a grade for the second time to be transferred or promoted to the next grade despite not having met the minimum pass requirements of that grade. The study employed a qualitative approach in order to gain insight into the issue being investigated. Data were collected by interviewing only those teachers who once taught or are currently teaching learners who were promoted automatically to their new grades. Data were analyzed by identifying salient themes and recurring ideas and classifying them into categories to make sense of the data. The study revealed that bullying other learners, poor academic performance of the promoted learners, truancy and lack of time to assist other learners were the major challenges primary school teachers at the selected school in the Zambezi Education Region face in implementing the automatic promotion policy.