26 Sep 2017

Minister of Land Management, Water and Sanitation Services, Mr Prince Maele has recently visited Lobatse Senior Secondary School to assess progress made on the Implementation Plan for Improvement of Schools. 

Some areas he looked into included infrastructure within the school, water supply, welfare and health safety of teachers and students, staff accommodation and student/teacher ratio. 

Minister Maele appreciated the challenges and promised that a report would be compiled and presented to Cabinet. 

Earlier, deputy school head, Ms Masego Gaorengwe told the minister that some of the challenges they were faced with included serious shortage of resources across departments. 

Ms Gaorengwe said the library was close to non-operational because it was too small to service the whole school. 

She also indicated that the school furniture was old while most buildings had deteriorated and were vandalised. 

Some classes, she said had shortage of equipment and such made it difficult for students to learn efficiently. 

She indicated that such departments as art and computer studies did not have computers for students’ projects and everyday learning. She also said some of the labs had inappropriate furniture unsuitable for learning. 

Further, she indicated that the 42-stream school operated with 132 teachers, out of which six were temporary. 

Also, Ms Gaorengwe expressed concern about students’ unruly behaviour. 

She said they had cases of delinquent students who engaged drug abuse, rape, sex work as well as insulting teachers and threatening them. 

So far, she said they had suspended 18 Form Four and 27 Form Five students, and the latter would only be allowed back at school two weeks prior to their final examinations. 

“Because of these social ills, the school management said the school was unable to produce better results. 

There is little support from parents and we have realised that some students who engaged in such behaviour were from dysfunctional homes,” she said. 

She also indicated that low results were also a result overstay of teachers in the school. 

On the other hand the school head, Ms Obusitswe Motlhageng applauded government for their efforts to assist schools. 

She said the school worked with the leadership in trying to address challenges in the school. 

She indicated that the school was allocated P1.5 million for maintenance in areas of sewerage, leakages and teachers houses. ENDS