11 Jan 2017

Maitlamo Junior Secondary School management and staff have committed themselves to put maximum effort to be amongst the top best schools in the country.

This followed a good start by the new school, which performed exceptionally well in Form One results analysis in the whole Ngamiland region despite the fact that the region had been performing badly.

In an interview, the school head, Mr Peter Mafokote confirmed that indeed his school topped other schools in the region in terms of performance.

He associated their good performance to the enabling conducive environment they established between teachers, parents, district leadership and students to ensure effective learning and teaching take place.

He  pointed out that the unweavering support they got from PTA and the parents in general keeps them going noting that “they had demonstrated that they are a team that does not need to be changed for a while until they attain a culture of excellence in Maitlamo.”

He said achieving excellence requires commitment by all stakeholders as together they could exchange ideas, contribute meaningfully and change the image of the education system for the better.

The ambitious school head believes that success of any education system lies on the three layers of people being teachers, parents and the students. Mr Mafokate also highlighted that discipline had become the order of the day at the school and all had embraced it.

He further revealed that the good performance by students gave them high hope that they would not disappoint parents during their Junior Certificate Examinations in 2018 as they were motivated, inspired and highly disciplined.

He said ever since the school opened its doors in May last year, they had not experienced any incidents of indiscipline amongst students noting that he was convinced that the pupils would made them proud if they could continue with the good spirit.

“Ever since we open doors, we dedicated ourselves to team building through meetings so that others especially new staff could be exposed to culture of Maitlamo.

We had planned to make the school a model of quality results and we are aiming high to reshape the secondary schools results in the region,” he added.

Mr Mafokate said during their meetings, they talk issues of professionalism, high productivity level and inculcated good morals amongst students.

The school head observed that his staff in collaboration with the Guidance and Counselling unit and some non-governmental organisations such as Love Botswana had restored the value of Botho amongst the students and believed that they would keep the same pace and maintain discipline up to their final examinations.

He said the Guidance and Counselling was doing a wonderful job as they sensitised students about issues of vandalism, criminal activities and other issues which could ruin their lives.

However, issues of vandalism in some schools are major challenges to government but at Maitlamo, management put more effort to ensure the student look after newly facility which they describe it as “the state of the art institution” so that other generations could benefit from it.

However, the school has been performing well in various codes being sports, subject fairs. The school head explained that they managed to qualify for the nationals in Home Economic subject fair and got position three while in sports some boxing students qualified for Botswana Integrated Sports Association championship in Gaborone but did not bring any medal. ENDS