26 May 2016

Ministry of Education and Skills Development budget is inadequate to address the challenges faced by the sector. 

Assistant Minister of Education and Skills Development (MoESD), Mr Fidelis Molao said this on Tuesday when addressing Tlokweng College of Education staff after touring the school. 

Conceding that the college needed attention, Mr Molao said although the ministry got the bulk of the government budget allocation, the bulk of the funds went towards staff salaries and the running of parastatals falling under the ministry. 

Mr Molao said that left a gap in addressing challenges of shortage of classroom, staff accommodation, teaching aids and laboratories in schools. 

Nonetheless, the assistant minister told the meeting that that they were hoping to remedy the situation through the Economic Stimulus Program (ESP). 

“We are aware of the challenges that you face, that is why we are saying through ESP we will accelerate issues of staff accommodation, classroom shortage and congestion,” he added. 

In addition, Mr Molao said the public institutions could only attain public confidence if they upped their pass rate hence the need to concentrate on quality education. 

Mr Molao added that the ministry had been underperforming and added that in the 2015 performance review; the ministry attained position 15 out of 16 ministries. 

He added that this year, the ministry showed a slight performance improvement as they attained position 12.

For his part, South East region director Mr Mabanga Gadibolae said despite the challenges in the region, they got first position in the academics last year. 

However, he said, they faced financial constraints adding that they had budgeted for P43 million but only got P9 million. ENDS