19 Nov 2015

Japanese Ambassador to Botswana, Mr Masahiro Onishi says Botswana government has implemented its education policies and expanded the opportunities for education even to remote parts of the country.

Speaking at the grant contract signing ceremony of more than P430 000 between Japan and Radisele Junior Secondary School for the construction of guidance and counseling block at the school, Mr Onishi said in order to make further progress to enrich the education system, betterment of the quality of education was fundamental.

“This is the first project being approved for the fiscal year 2015 from the Japanese Government’s Grant Assistance for Grass-Root Human Security Projects and Radisele JSS became the first junior secondary school to be a recipient of this grant since it started in Botswana in 1997,” he said.

When it comes to secondary education, he said students generally had various and complicated problems, not only in their studies, but about their family, friends, health, lifestyle and their future.

Mr Onishi noted that such concerns could have significant influence upon their motivations towards their studies and the results of their performance.

The guidance and counseling block is expected to assist more than 600 students, who would be able to receive counseling and first-aid treatment at the newly built facility.

Furthermore, he said that they were in a transitional stage between children and adults where they were vulnerable to serious social and health problems such as HIV/AIDS or early pregnancies.

He observed that the signing ceremony became a reality through passion, patience and strong sense of responsibility of the school head and all stakeholders since negotiations began in July 2014.

The ambassador urged the Ministry of Education and Skills Development and all partners to contribute their knowledge and expertise for the fruitful achievement of the project for the benefit of all the beneficiaries.
He further expressed his condolences and that of Japan to the nation on the recent tragic accidents involving students of Matsha College in Kang that took away lives and injured many students.

Deputy director, Central Region in the Ministry of Education and Skills Development Mr Mokwaledi Koko said history has been made by the Japanese Embassy to Botswana in support of the education system in Botswana.
Mr Koko said the central region has been blessed and lucky to have been helped twice by Japan.

He noted that they had experienced social turmoil as a result of HIV/AIDS and the fact that Botswana is a developing country renders her vulnerable to many challenges.

“With all these challenges, we need psycho social counseling and if we are to do it as the ministry, we should be having guidance and counseling centres that can be used to attend to all the pressing issues within the catchment area of all beneficiary centres.

Mr Koko said the centre was ideal and crucial in the realisation of the aspiration of the national Vision 2016, adding that the facility would be open to the entire community in the surrounding area so that it does not turn into a white elephant.

For her part, Radisele JSS school head, Ms Tlotlego Motshidisi said the gesture would benefit the students a lot in that nowadays students were encountering a lot of challenges.

She said because of the counseling block, there would be an opportunity to discuss issues on one to one basis. In most cases, she said schools do not have such blocks that were very important. She noted that students’ confidentiality would not be compromised. Ends