22 Dec 2016

Professor Joseph Mbaiwa of the Okavango Research has challenged leadership in schools to demonstrate particular qualities as they drive young people into excellence and responsible citizens.

He said they should be able to demonstrate skills such as change management, coaching/mentoring, communication, negotiation and problem solving, conceptual thinking, focused drive, system thinking just to mention a few.

He made the remarks during the official closing of a two weeks boot camp for Maun Senior Secondary School Form 4s.

He also called for the commitment of all stakeholders to work as a team in order to attain the expected results.

Prof. Mbaiwa said leadership in schools aim at focus on good in young people than wrongs adding that students should be reminded that their role in the game plan was to learn and study hard to obtain good grades when they finally leave secondary school.

“Students should understand that the education they got from schools is meant to help them fulfill their potential and become useful, productive members of the society in the near future,” he added.

Furthermore, he said students should understand that education provides people with a variety of career options noting that a person who was educated had better career prospects and growth opportunities.

Prof. Mbaiwa revealed that secondary and tertiary education provides a person with skills and knowledge that he/she needs to succeed in the job marker and “these are some of the lessons that young people learnt in this boot camp.

The camp made you aware of current challenges which if not careful would hinder you from achieving the excellence you wish to achieve in life”.

He mentioned some of the challenges such as teenage pregnancy noting that the rate of pregnancy among school going kids was very high in the country.

He indicated that pregnancy was one of the major reasons why school going girls left school and put constraints on some of the schools including Botswana to achieve desired goals of excellence.

He said a total of 784 girls dropped out of secondary school in 2014 due to pregnancy and only 44 school boys were responsible for the pregnancies.

He observed that in 2013, Shakawe Senior Secondary School had about 23 girls who dropped out of school due to pregnancy while 35 dropped at Matshekge and 27 at Mmadinare in 2015 and only 6 school boys were responsible for the pregnancies.

Prof. Mbaiwa advised students to focus in their education and complete studies without interference on issues of love relationships.

Other challenges he mentioned include HIV/AIDS noting that Botswana has been facing a serious challenge of HIV/ AIDS pandemic which resulted in the loss of productive young people and adults.

For her part, Maun Senior Secondary School head Ms Selebatso Modisaemang said youth development was about people, programmes, institutions and systems that provide all youth ‘troubled’ or not with the support and opportunities they need in order to empower themselves.

She said youth development strategies focused on giving young people the chance to form relationships with caring adults, built skills, exercise leadership and help their communities. ENDS