01 Sep 2015

The Central District Council (CDC) intends to have reception classes in all primary schools by 2018, CDC chairperson, Mr Peter Williams has said.

In his opening remarks on the state of the district, Mr Williams told a council session that in order to address the recent poor results at primary schools, his district would roll-out pre-primary education throughout the district.

“As we speak, we have 66 pre-primary classes in our schools and we hope that this will adequately address and cultivate the necessary interest in our children at an early age,” said Mr Williams, adding that the number of schools would increase by 47 schools in 2016.

The chairperson said despite primary schools “performing better” he was still concerned by the lack of parental support which resulted in high school dropouts as well as unexplained absenteeism. The chairperson urged all parents to be proactive in education matters pertaining to their children.

Though he conceded that the government was faced with lack of resources at primary schools, Mr Williams warned Ministry of Education and Skills Development officials not to use it as an excuse against delivering good results.

He said as part of performance improvement, the ministry has resuscitated the inspectorate that visits schools to ensure that curriculum was fully delivered to students.

“They are also resuscitating the in-service to help our schools with interpretation of the curriculum objectives and are in the process of filling vacant posts,” Mr Williams said.

He challenged fellow councillors to adopt schools in their wards and help monitor and support them. He said the move would reverse the academic decline that had been experienced in the last five years. Mr Williams said there was a need to invest more on education, adding that through the backlog eradication programme, the student–teacher ratio would decrease and allowe a teacher to give full attention to all students.

He revealed that statistics showed that there was a shortage of 1 373 teachers quarters, 2 084 toilets, 158 classrooms and 103 administration blocks which would all require over P1 million  to be implemented.

The chairperson said 29 primary schools have exceeded the expected school enrolment with Kediretswe, Shashe Mooke, Frederic Maherero, Mokane and Borolong operating at 28 streams. Ends