15 Feb 2017

Exercising patience is something that residents of Gerald Estates have lived with for the past 17 years.
Some of the residents who relocated to Gerald Estates in 2000 were those who were affected by the floods at Matjimenyenga around 1995 and others were those who paved way for some industrial developments at Somerset west.
When they relocated, they were aware of the challenges ahead of them as they first felt isolated because of the distance between their area and that of the educational facilities and several other basic service facilities in the city centre.
With all the hardships they endured, they remained hopeful that long lasting solutions would be implemented to bring much needed services closer to them.
Today Gerald Estates has something to smile about given a number of developments done and ongoing ones. To add cherry on top is the long awaited junior secondary school which finally opened its doors this year.
When the school opened early January, parents were all in jubilation, not only that more developments were coming their way. It was also to the relief that their children were now relieved of having to leave for school in the wee hours of the morning because of the distance they had to travel.
One parent, Ms Tumediso Dick said lack of a junior school in the area had given them sleepless nights in the past.
She said the situation was even made difficult by the fact that when they first settled in the area, public transport was very scarce, especially in the morning.
“Our children were forced to leave home as early as 430am, walking a distance of more than five kilometres and the nearest place they could catch public transport at was at the then Botswana Meat Commission circle,” she said.
Ms Dick said the children would only return home very late again tired and weary, giving them little chance to do their evening study.
For his part, the director of education for the North East region, Mr Galesengwe Mohube confirmed that the school has been opened and it was initially set to be a 30 stream facility.
He said the school would operate with only form ones and form two’s classes with eight and four streams respectively.
“We have four streams for Form Two classes and have also reserved extra two for issues of transfer in and as for the form ones, we have eight streams only,” he said.
Mr Mohube said the Form Ones have more streams because two were reserved to accommodate students from two local primary schools at Gerald Estates and now that numbers of transfer ins had increased, they had to add extra classes.
He also said the other contributing factor for the increase was to alleviate challenges of congestion at Tlhalogang Junior Secondary School.
Mr Mohube further said currently, the school has a total number of 332 learners and the number is expected to increase.
Meanwhile, Kgosi Paul Motshwane of Gerald Estates also expressed gratitude over the newly opened junior secondary school.
He emphasised a strong cordial working relationship between parents and teachers, noting that it was the only way to reap satisfying results. ENDS