11 Sep 2017

Having in place effective school clubs could help contribute towards efforts aimed at moulding the country’s youth.

Highlighting their importance during an interview on Monday, the school head of Sir Seretse Khama Memorial Junior Secondary School, Mr Mmoloki Moreo said if effective, the clubs could help deter students from engaging in crime.

Mr Moreo however observed that while the clubs’ importance could not be over-emphasised, it was sad that several factors continued to hamper efforts to make them effective.

Taking his school as a case study, Mr Moreo said the issue of overtime for teachers affected the clubs as most of them chose to go with sporting clubs where they were eligible for overtime payment.

This, he said, meant that the rest of the school clubs did not have mentors and had as a result collapsed or were barely surviving.

The other problem, Mr Moreo said was that even if the clubs were effective, there was insufficient time for club activities as parents and those responsible for transporting students to their homes after school picked learners as soon as they finished their academic work, reasoning that they wanted to avoid being stuck in traffic.

The school head however expressed contentment at some of the school’s club such as the Scripture Union, which he said was among the most effective.

He also cited the school choir and the karate club as some of those delivering on their mandate of keeping students engaged and thereby not prone to engaging in social ills such as petty crime and bullying.

Ms Florence Leepo, a senior teacher at the same school concurred on the importance of helping shape the behaviour of students.

She said at Sir Seretse Khama Memorial, they had adopted an initiative dubbed the Adopt-A-Boy Child Strategy to help in the endeavour to mould male students at the school.

Ms Leepo said the programme, which is her brainchild, came after the realisation that academically, male students were out-performed by their female counterparts.

She said the situation had engendered some frustration among male students; something which she observed had resulted in some of the boys turning to delinquency.

She pointed out that it was nonetheless not the only problem that affected male students’ academic performance, saying  the breaking down of families through such problems as divorce and the absence  of male role models in families had also been identified as causes of bad morals among male students.

She said it was then that the strategy was born, the aim of which was to help empower male students through provision of guidance and mentorship services.

Ms Leepo said while presently there were only about 20 problematic male students in the school, they would not soften their stance on the problem as they did not want the behaviour of the rest of the student population to be corroded.

Ms Leepo said the aim of the strategy was to have an organisation come on board and adopt the school’s male students and help mould them into responsible citizens through any means possible.

She appealed for professionals in various fields to also come on board to assist, saying the services of such people as motivational speakers, district commissioners, ex-convicts, religious leaders would go a long way in helping shaping the behaviour of the school’s male students. ENDS