01 Sep 2016

Parents Teachers Association (PTA) is one of the forums that can be used to address issues affecting students.

Officially opening the third PTA Convention in Palapye on Tuesday, the Minister of Education and Skills Development, Dr Unity Dow, emphasised the importance of PTAs in addressing student drop outs and improving retention at lower levels.

She thus appealed to the national PTA to help combat issues such as child labour, drug addiction and racketeering, the sexual abuse of children and other issues which inhibit children from attending school.

“As parents we are best placed to act because this abuse happens within our neighbourhoods,” she said. The minister said PTAs partnerships stood for a broad range of concepts, such as positive school culture, moral education, caring education community, social-emotional learning and positive youth development.

“All of these promote the intellectual, social, emotional and ethical development of young people and share a common commitment to help young people become responsible, caring and contributing members of society,” she said.

Dr Dow noted that PTA partnerships helped young people develop human qualities such as love for learning, respect and courage.

In addition she said PTAs need to play a more active role in the school and share the responsibility to motivate students, staff and other members of the community to work hard and strive for success.

“The community has a major responsibility to instill social values within schools and society augmenting the efforts made within the school,” she said.

She explained that her ministry had developed a five year strategic plan aimed at addressing some of the challenges that the education system was faced with.

For his part Assistant Minister of Education and Skills Development Mr Moiseraele Goya said taking a keen interest in the development of the country’s future human capital could not be the sole responsibility of government.

He said parents and other stakeholders could not afford to isolate themselves from the process of moulding students, who upon graduation join the society as service providers.

Mr Goya said the role of parents was not merely confined to attending meetings arranged by the school authorities, adding that parents should lean on their own accord to visit schools to ask questions about how their children are progressing and to volunteer any information about their children that could help to improve learning.

Mr Goya, who is also MP for Palapye, said schools with active PTA did exceptionally well citing Dutlwe in Letlhakeng Sub-district, Letlhakane Primary School in Letlhakane Sub-district and Lentswelemoriti in Bobonong Sub-district.

For his part Prof. Nkobi Pansiri from University of Botswana said PTAs provided a conducive environment for children, adding that this improved regular attendance to lessons and reduced drop-out rates or withdrawals.

He said statistics showed that 1 038 students in Central District withdrew from school in secondary schools in 2012, compared to 17 students in Chobe.

He said a total of  2839 students withdrew from school countrywide during the same period.

He said low academic performance was also a challenge, adding that majority of learners were on C and D grade across all levels.

“We need to change and give learners a symbol of hope,” he said. ENDS