13 Jun 2016

School drop outs interfere with educational system efficiency. 

Good Hope deputy district commissioner, Ms  Goitseone Nkwe-Tabane, said this when giving a district development committee (DDC) report during a full sub-council meeting recently.

She said in the last quarter, the sub-region had a total of 26 dropouts from primary schools compared to 14 this quarter, adding that it was a reduction of 53.8 per cent. 

She further said the sub-region had a total of 28 dropouts for secondary schools.

However, she said the dropout rate was slightly reduced this quarter compared to the third quarter due to full implementation and monitoring of retention strategies and that several measures were undertaken to tackle the issue.

Ms  Nkwe-Tabane said most students who dropped from school often had a history of absenteeism, adding that however, others dropped out of school due to different factors such as   pregnancies, truants, low parent expectation and low parent education.

She said peer influence was a significant factor in the school dropout situation particularly in secondary schools.

She further said however, certain interventions were applied to such drop outs such as consultations with parents and referral of students to social workers for guidance and counseling.

Ms Nkwe - Tabane said the Social and Community Development (S&CD) had registered 1 176 needy students in the district in which 30 were assisted with food, 101 assisted with transport, 203 with uniforms, 41 with rentals and 68 with toiletries. 

She said uniforms were supplied to standard one’s and form four students.

Reporting on the orphans programme, she said there were 1 150 registered orphans in which 1 003 were assisted with food, 54 with transport, 184 uniforms, one rentals, 215 toiletry and 29 provided with counselling.

Meanwhile the report showed that in water quality monitoring, a total of 83 water samples were collected from different water sources in the sub district from which only 52 passed the laboratory tests while 31 failed. 

The results were communicated to the relevant stakeholders to take remedial action, she said.

She said the law enforcement committee was still experiencing acute shortage of transport as a major challenge as members of the community do not take into consideration crime prevention initiatives from the police like the neighborhood watch and engagement of security personnel in their own businesses hence high number of break-ins.

She said most business owners do not mark their goods for ease of identification in case of recovery on suspected persons while others do not attend meetings by committee member departments.

Ms Nkwe-Tabane said the recommendation was that community leaders such as dikgosi, councillors and pastors be requested to help the police in urging and influencing their communities to actively participate in crime prevention activities. ENDS