11 Apr 2017

Takatokwane Primary School head Mr Kgaogano Pagiwa has pleaded with dikgosi in Takatokwane to help trace back some students who dropped out of school.

The concerned school head said education was every child’s right, hence it is worrisome that some students were left to drop out of school without any valid reasons.

In an interview recently, Mr Pagiwa said that the school had registered a high number of dropouts in 2016.

Mr Pagiwa said despite the school management’s efforts of trying to trace back the children to find out the cause of dropping out, they still faced a serious challenge as they were clueless with the whereabouts of those students.

Mr Pagiwa said some were sent to cattle posts, where they were engaged as herd boys.

He said that the school was now working with traditional leaders to try and address the challenge as the leaders knew most families and their homes.

“Magosi are the very same people who can help us find the students employed in cattle posts that surround Takatokwane,” said Mr Pagiwa.

He said another serious challenge that the school had to face was lack of transport to go to far places such as cattle posts to collect the dropouts.

Mr Pagiwa said such a situation forced them to end up using their own vehicles to go to such far places as Magakabe Cattle Post.

Mr Pagiwa said what worried him most was that while they had to be united in advocating for the children’s right to education, some parents would rather let the children stay at cattle posts than sending them back to school.

He said the parents have a tendency to give up on children who refuse to go to school.

He said such an attitude made the job even more difficult as the teachers had to convince the children to go back to school on their own.

He noted that sometimes they took the children back to school only to go back to the cattle posts after two weeks.

Further, Mr Pagiwa said if their plan of cooperating with traditional leaders to bring the children back to school could be implemented, he would be assured that their task would now become much easier.

Mr Pagiwa also said if parents could unite in asserting their childrens’ right to education, their job would be a success story as they would be assured that 95 per cent of students at Takatokwane would atleast complete Standard Seven.

He said even though they were working with a few classrooms, he and his team would strive to make sure that they deliver the best education.

He said the plan was to work with what was available until government found enough money to build more classrooms. ENDS