11 Jun 2015

The Vice President, Mr Mokgweetsi Masisi, says teachers deserve to be treated with dignity so that they could produce dignified results.

Addressing Mmadinare Senior Secondary School management and senior teachers on June 11 after he toured the school facilities, Mr Masisi said teachers should be re-skilled and retooled to produce world class citizens.

Mr Masisi called on knowledgeable and experienced teachers to groom younger teachers and expose them to best practices in the teaching fraternity so that they perform well and produce future leaders.

He also encouraged teachers to be open-minded, learn new skills and be creative in their field. He emphasised the need to have effective management in schools to obtain good results. School infrastructure should be protected and taken care, he added.

The Vice President said there should be continuous monitoring of performance of teachers and students to identify challenges and come up with remedial measures.

Government, he said was in the process of introducing Integrated Management System where data concerning schools performance, teachers, students, management or school facilities would be upgraded continuously and retrieved when wanted.

The system, he said would make management perform accordingly and help schools produce good results. In a nutshell, he said the system would revamp and upgrade the education system to another level.

Mr Masisi said the Ministry of Education and Skills Development has halted the automatic promotion procedure. Regarding the procurement of school text books, Mr Masisi said that government had invested heavily on such books yet in some areas of the education sector there was shortage of funds.

The Vice President said lack of monitoring in the procurement of books had led to some people exploiting the system and engaging in corrupt practices, which resulted in government losing millions of pula. 

He said the situation was being scrutinized and government was still in the process of disbursing funds towards feeding of students, purchasing of office equipment such as fax machines, photocopy machines and computers among others.

He urged parents to play a meaningful role in their children’s education and not leave everything to school teachers.  He also raised a concern about some people who sell drugs to students claiming to be selling snacks and sweets at school premises.

He said it was the responsibility of all Batswana to curb such practices and ensure that schools produce good responsible leaders.

For his part, the school headmaster, Mr Sechaba Oabile gave a brief background of the school and how it has performed since its inception in 2011.

Mr Oabile noted that the school has 1703 students with 127 qualified teachers and 52 supporting staff. The school, he said has shortage of three physics teachers and currently using temporary teachers.

He said 71 per cent of students are borders and they have 53 classrooms and seven laboratories. He however said, since 2011 the results had not been satisfactory, adding that in 2012 the school had a 21 per cent pass rate, 2013 they obtained a 27.54 per cent and 18.9 per cent in 2014. 

Mr Masisi also visited the Mmadinare Tribal Authority to get first-hand information on challenges they faced. ENDS