29 Mar 2016

The adage that the earlist bird catches the fattest worm was the motivation for the Cheshire Foundation of Botswana to sponsor Maokane Primary School pre-school pupils.

 The executive director of the foundation, Mr Billy Masebola said this during the donation ceremony.He said early child development was important as it helps bring good results in schools.

The donation ceremony was held under the theme: The earlist bird catches the fattest worm.

Mr Masebola said parents and teachers should recognise the importance of early childhood education. 

He added that early childhood education was one of the key elements that helps to bring good results to schools and a better preparation for the future for children.

He noted that pre-education includes crèches, pre-schools, and nurseries amongst others, and that they were responsible for providing education before the commencement of real schooling. 

He added that it was at this stage that children were taught the basic needs and that it was vital in the growth of children.

“I would like to put on record that not everyone has that cutting edge to solve issues they face schools as per seen done by Ms Kenosi,’’ said Mr Masebola. 

He added that he believed it was because of Ms Kenosi and her team to start a reception class in her school as agreed by the government. 

He said early education was a way of encouraging children and parents on the development of their children.

Giving her remarks, Ms Tlhopho Kenosi, Maokane Primary School head, said she was impressed with the performance of the school. 

She said since she came in 2014, results were gradually improving. 

She said they also conducted research with the teachers and found out that there were lots of absenteeism by pupils, 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,’’ Ms Kenosi said. 

She said since the workshop they held with Cheshire, parents were fully participating in  Parents Teachers Association (PTA) meetings. 

She further noted that the school used to have 399 pupils but now have about 467 pupils. The school has 17 teachers and other working staff.

On behalf of the MP for Mmathethe/Molapowabojang, Mr Jacob Dikuelo thanked Ottraco company and Majwe Mining for the donations. 

Ottraco donated 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. 

He said it was the responsibility of the community and the school to maintain the pre-school and that they were also hoping to help other schools in the near future.

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