06 Jul 2016

Since Makgadikgadi Junior Secondary School opened in 2002, the school has had challenges of water supply, Assistant Minister of Education and Skills Development, Mr Fidelis Molao has said.

Mr Molao was responding to a question in Parliament from Boteti East MP, Mr Sethomo Lelatisitswe. Makgadikgadi JSS, he said had two sets of ablution facilities, adding that currently only the older hostel ablutions were in use as a result of shortage of water in the school.

“The situation worsened in 2010 due to closure of one of the two boreholes that supplied the school with water.  The school currently relies solely on Nthane village borehole,” he said.

The issue of water supply, assistant minister said was a national challenge that the Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources was addressing.

Transfer of teachers, with their positions, to other schools earlier this year and the utilisation of some vacant positions to absorb employees without posts during the migration of data from the Infinium system to the ORACLE Capital System, he said had caused shortage of teachers.

This shortage, he said was in some subjects, such as; Physical Education, Integrated Science, Design and Technology, Business Studies, Moral Education and English.

Mr Molao said there were five temporary teachers at the school, all possessing the necessary qualification to teach at this level.

These teachers, he said taught across the three levels- from form one to form three.

“Although there has not been any research on the link between the engagement of temporary teachers and declining learner performance, it is possible that learners adapt differently to changes of teachers and their varying styles of teaching,” he said.

Currently, he said only Social Studies classes were without a teacher, as the teacher was on maternity leave and would return when schools reopen in August.

“A temporary teacher was engaged to teach her classes in April, but left in May after being offered a permanent job elsewhere and we could not find another replacement. Teachers do not want to be employed for a month and some do not want to take appointment at Mosu village,” he added.

To address the situation of temporary teachers in the school, assistant minister said the ministry was currently reviewing the Establishment Registers for all schools to address issues of staff shortage in schools like Makgadikgadi and overstaffing in others.

“We will address the issues of lack of posts in Makgadikgadi JSS by July 22, 2016,” he added. MP Lelatisitswe had him to state where students accessed services of toilets and ablution, how long the school had been experiencing shortage of water and which subjects were hard hit by shortage of teachers and which classes had been run by temporary teachers .

The MP also wanted to know how the engagement of temporary teachers had affected school results, why there was still classes running without teachers whilst there were many teachers who completed at universities and were unemployed. ENDS