Numerous educational ministries around the world have implemented a policy of grade repetition in order to control the quality of their pupils in their education systems. Currently, there is a high instance of grade repetition in the SACMEQ countries. However, little is know of repeater background and their circumstances, and whether the practice of grade repetition is actually effective in improving education quality. This article has two objectives. The first is to describe the characteristics of pupils who had undergone grade repetition in participating SACMEQ countries as well as characteristics of schools which repeating pupils attended. Statistics and analysis is based on the SACMEQ II data set of October 2004. The implications of the so-called “the frog effect” - in which the classroom teacher has sole discretion for pupil promotion - has been also raised and discussed. The second objective of the paper is to examine the effect of pupil grade repetition on their achievement. A multi-level regression analysis has been conducted and the results have shown that repeaters did not achieve as high as non-repeaters in any of the SACMEQ countries, but the magnitude of the effect of grade repetition on achievement varied across countries. In some countries, the effect of grade repetition was inconsistent across schools, even each country.