18 Aug 2016

Southern region’s chief education officer, Ms Maipelo Kesenye, says department of non-formal education has encouraged out of school education and training learners (OSET) to up-skill.
She was speaking during  the learners week literacy day recently.
Ms Kesenye said in the olden days, Botswana used to be one of the countries with a high literacy rate because they undermined education compared to herding cattle and marriages.
She encouraged the attendants to look back and assessed what they had achieved in the past and come up with better ways of improving the situation.
She emphasised the importance of being literate, saying an illiterate person has slight chances of doing better in business.
She said a person who could  read and write can improve his/her living standard, support family and partake in the country's development.
However, she said knowing how to read and write alone was not enough to improve one's life, hence the need to up-skill and undertake hand craft short courses and handwork.
She encouraged those who have passion in business, politics, health, and other aspects of education to participate in such courses, even if they are short courses.
Kesenye appealed to other departments to sponsor OSET programmes as they faced finance challenges.
She called upon departments to offer OSET related short courses and also encouraged OSET department to improve their programmes so that they could attract more learners and sponsors.
She also urged OSET adult learners to learn their culture and preserve it.
Some of the adult learners expressed their gratitude for taking part in OSET, saying they had learnt that education could change and shape their characters and lives. ENDS