02 May 2016

Standard one has been an uphill battle for some pupils who never enrolled for pre-school education.

Besides that, teachers were faced with challenges of spending much of the curriculum time orientating new pupils since the school environment in itself was a challenge to the pupils.

The thought of their parents leaving them in a strange place never settled well with them. 

While others would scream at the top of their voices, grabbing their parents with clothes, others would sit so quietly trapped in one place with fear of the unknown.

With the introduction of government pre-school programme in some primary schools countrywide, the situation has gradually changed.

Ntshe Primary School in Francistown is one of the schools that offer the programme. 

A recent visit at this school revealed that the programme had a positive impact.

The current standard ones who took part in the programme last year were beaming with joy at the beginning of the year with endless smiles.  

Their confidence as they sat in their mini chairs and desks was something that one could always make a positive comment about.

They sat eloquently with more eagerness to start up the business of the day. 

One more interesting thing was the medium of instruction, which was strictly English and amazingly these pupils easily understood what was said.

The school head of Ntshe Primary School, Ms Boingotlo Chaba, said in an interview that the programme was meant to ready pupils for standard one.

Ms Chaba said the programme exposed the pupils to the school environment hence enabling them to spend less time familiarising learners with the environment when they start standard one.

“Normally we used to spend a lot of time helping learners to settle well and adapt to the environment, at times this had to compromise the curriculum period. 

But now that we have this programme running, we utilise it to familiarise the pupils with the learning environment and other necessities,” she said.

Ms Chaba said the programme focused on areas of early literacy, social, personal and emotional developments, scientific thinking, creativity and other relevant aspects.

“We always come up with several activities such as short plays, reading short stories, colouring, songs and others  which grab and engage the attention of learners,” she said.

Ms Chaba further explained that the school started offering the programme last year with a total number of 63 learners and only 60 graduated last year November, with reasons that others got transferred.

“Due to several challenges, last year we had to start up late in May instead of January. 

This year we started well in time when the schools re-opened in January. 

We have two classes each has 30 pupils,” she said.

One of the parents Ms Koziba Mangena hailed the programme. 

She said it closed the gap between those who went to private pre-schools and those who never went. 

She also noted that it was cost effective as one did not spend much in terms of fees.

Though the programme closed the gap between the pupils whose parents could not afford to pay them school fees at private schools, some owners of these schools felt disadvantaged. 

Ms Teedzani Madzonga (34) who owns and runs Elegant Kids Pre-School and Day Care lamented that the programme has set up a higher competition for her.

Ms Madzonga who was assisted through Youth Development Fund (YDF) noted that she has experienced a drastic decline in her intake. 

“My pre-school is just a stone throw away from one of the primary schools that offers the government pre-school service. 

Some of the potential parents I looked up to now opt to send their children to the government pre-schools. 

This has given me a challenge as my yearly intake has dropped to 30 instead of the 41 that I always operated with,” she said. ENDS