22 Mar 2016

Cheshire Foundation executive director, Mr Billy Masebola, says early child development can help bring in good results at schools.

He said this during a recent donation event at Maokane Primary School for pre-class.

Mr Masebola, who is also the chairperson of both Council of Disabled and the Vision 2016 pillar of compassionate, just and caring nation, said parents and teachers should recognise the importance of early childhood education in schools. 

He said early childhood was one of the key elements that could help bring good results to schools and a better preparation for the future.

He noted that pre-education included crèches, pre-schools, nurseries amongst others and they were responsible for providing education before commencement of the real education. He said said children were taught the basic needs that were vital in their growth.

Mr Masebola added that early education was a way of encouraging children, and through it the staff communicates with the parents on the developments of their children.

When giving her remarks, Mrs Tlhopho Kenosi, Maokane Primary School head, said she is very impressed with the performance of the school. She said since she came in Maokane  since middle of 2014, results are gradually improving. She said since then they conducted a research together with the teachers and found out that there were lots of absenteeism by students, school dropouts and poor foundation in the school. 

“We had a bad start in the beginning but we successfully asked for help from Cheshire Foundation of Botswana,’’ Mrs Kenosi said. She said since the workshop they held with Cheshire, parents are fully participating in the PTA meetings. She further added that the school used to have only 399 students but they now have about 467 students. The school has 17 teachers and other working staff.

On behalf of MP for Mmathethe/Molapowabojang constituency, Mr Jacob Dikuelo thanked Ottraco company and Majwe Mining for the donations. Ottraco company donated up to P48 000 for the reception class and also bought school uniforms. 

“We as private organisations have an obligation to help communities we live in and at Ottraco we took a decision to use some of our money to help those people we live with, that is why we started with pre-school as education is an important factor in our lives”, said Mr Steve Louw, director of Ottraco company. He said it is the responsibility of the community and the school to maintain the pre-school and that they are also hoping to help other schools in the near future.

Ms Bonolo Seakgo, a resident in Maokane donated some trees for the school’s orchard while Ms Ontibile Gopane of Seherelela donated two school uniforms to two students. ENDS