10 Jan 2016

Francistown City Council is concerned about pre-schools and day care centres within the city that are operating illegally.

The council's senior public relations officer, Mr Joseph Wasubera has revealed in an interview recently that it has come to their attention that some centres continue to mushroom and operate in ungazetted areas while others fail to meet the set requirements.

He said the matter was discovered during routine inspection of the centres around the city.

“As the license provider of day care and pre-school services, we often visit these centres for inspection and other relevant matters, and we have realised that some of them are not officially registered,” he said.

Mr Wasubera said the illegal centres pose a health threat to learners, adding that the areas that some of the centres operate from were not conducive for learning.

Moreover, Mr Wasubera also revealed that some of the centres operate from houses which were at the same time used as homesteads.

“These are the same centres that fail to engage qualified pre-school teachers at the same time they do not offer relevant programmes hence compromising learners' education. They are mostly after profit,” he said.

Mr Wasubera emphasised that it was imperative that parents should conduct research about the centre they wish to enroll their children at.

“Some of these illegal pre-schools and day care centres continue to exist because of the support they receive from some parents, as they never make any effort to research about the school well in time and will only make such effort when a problem surfaces,” he said. Ends