01 Mar 2016

The new Disaneng Junior Secondary School is expected to open doors at the beginning of the second term. The regional education office has already effected transfers of teachers and non-teaching staff to the new school.

The North West District Council chairman, Mr Reaboka Mbulawa, said during the full council meeting on Monday that the first 340 cohort students started classes on the first day of the term at Tsodilo and Sedie junior secondary schools.

He said poor performance of schools in the district both primary and secondary remained worrisome even though the 2015 Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) registered a slight improvement of 57 per cent from 56 per cent in 2014.

He said the recently released Junior Certificate Examination (JCE)) results showed a decline of ten per cent from 33 per cent in 2014 to 23 per cent in 2015.

However, Mr Mbulawa pointed out that there was a ray of hope regarding the Botswana General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGCSE) as the just released 2015 results showed that both Maun and Shakawe senior schools registered an improvement in their performance.

“Special congratulations must be given to Shakawe Senior which recorded a total improvement of 6.8 per cent from 6.99 per cent in 2014 to 13.7 per cent in 2015.
On the other hand, Maun senior registered a slight improvement of 0.84 per cent by moving from 22.20 per cent in 2014 to 23.04 per cent in 2015,” he added.

Mr Mbulawa informed the house that the regional education office has put some measures in place to try and improve the results which include the development of the Teaching and Learning standards which were launched early January this year at Shakakwe, Gumare and Maun.

The subject standards that had been developed required parents to check their children’s books to see if they were given school work and marked according to the standards.
The chairman said part of the responsibility lies with the parents and the community at large.

The house also learnt that school inspections and pastoral visits by education officers at both primary and secondary schools have already started and would be done throughout the year.
Mr Mbulawa implored councillors and parents to take part in the education of their children.

On health issues, he said the district recorded a total of 66 malaria cases as at the end of January 2016 with 26 and 40 cases in Ngami District Health Management Team (DHMT) and Gumare DHMT respectively. Only one death was reported from Gumare.

The chairman said the district is one of the malaria endemic areas in the country and pointed out that residual spraying was done and completed in December 2015.
Mr Mbulawa revealed that all settlements and villages were sprayed except Maun after advice from the Malaria elimination Programme that the area currently has a low transmission rate. Ends