08 Aug 2017

Makgakgane Primary School in Hukuntsi in the Kgalagadi North has turned around the fortunes for good.

For some few years the school has been performing not so well despite the fact that since its inception in 2002 it was committed to producing good results.

The school head, Ms Sentebanye Molatole, who came to the school in 2011, had a mammoth task of re-shaping it more so that she came at the time of one of the biggest industrial strikes in the history of the country.

Most teachers had taken to the streets, abandoning classes while those on duty were on a go-slow.

As a newly promoted principal, she had the challenge of proving that she deserved the promotion.

“It was one of the toughest tasks at hand,” she narrated.   

When the Primary School Leaving Examination results for that year were released, the industrial strike had taken its toll; the pass rate was at 64 per cent, it was a bad performance as the school was known for its good performance.

The following year, although the effects of the strike were still being felt, the school registered a slight improvement of 67 per cent pass.

The working relations between the school management and parents were not impressive.

Some parents transferred their children to other schools.

With the help of dikgosi and the VDC, the transformation of the school was gradually setting sight.

The school’s committees were revived and others that were not in existence were formed.

The fortunes of the school changed tremendously in 2013 when the results sprung to 90 per cent and since then they had maintained the merit results as in 2014 they improved further to 95 per cent, 90 per cent in 2015 as well as last year.

The school took position one in the whole of Hukuntsi Sub-district, deposing the nearby Ncaang Primary School.

The incredible news was that for the past three years the school has been the best in the Kgalagadi District.

Ms Molatole said the good performance was not by chance, but rather a result of hard work, commitment and cooperation of all stakeholders, adding that achieving good results could be attributed to parents, teachers and the students themselves because the three stakeholders had to play their role.

She recalled that after the bad performance in her first two years at the helm, the village leadership had to be roped in so as to help the parents realise their role in the education of their children.

Ms Molatole said one of their secrets at Makgakgane Primary School was that they had adopted English medium model.

She said  monitoring of results in all classes also helped them to track performance so that some of the challenges were identified earlier, adding that the commitment of teachers was outstanding, more so that they sometimes take revision papers during sports camps and tours to revise with standard seven pupils. ENDS