27 Feb 2018

Assistant Minister of Basic Education Mr Moiseraele Goya has implored Mphuthe Junior School teachers at Letlhakeng not to relent in the face of challenges, but use the little resources they have to produce good academic results.

Welcoming the Debswana subject specialists engaged by the school to help with strategies of turning its performance around, Mr Goya indicated that such challenges as shortage of classrooms, textbooks and staff inadequacy are common even at best performing schools in the country and therefore should not be a hindrance to imparting knowledge to students.

“Education, especially at basic level is very vital on the national agenda of economic improvements, and therefore teachers at all levels are vital stakeholders in achieving such,” he said.

Mr Goya also appreciated the move by the new school head for finding it fit to engage the subject specialists from Debswana, and urged the teachers to utilise the skills from the experts.

He also informed the staff that in the next financial year, the Ministry of Basic Education will decentralise and disburse funds directly to schools so that they can better handle issues such as minor maintenance and procurement of basic necessities.

Mr Goya also informed the staff that his ministry is not happy with the latest examination results at all school levels.

“This year we experienced a slight improvement in both PSLE and Junior Certificate, and a deep drop in the BGCSE, and performance by public schools is generally below par at primary, junior and secondary schools,” he said.

He said that in the latest examinations results, the best performing senior school only managed 53 per cent, while the best performing junior school recorded 77 per cent, and that out of the 57 primary schools that registered 100 per cent, only 11 were public school while the rest were private ones.

On the other end of the bar, he said the worst performing senior school registered 11.1 per cent while the worst junior and primary schools registered 9.2 and 9.8 per cent respectively.

Mr Goya therefore cautioned that if no swift action is taken to address this underachievement, the country runs the risk of uncertain future of its generations. 

“This then calls for teachers to up their game to safeguard the future of our children. There is no room to play blame games,” he said.

For his part, Mphuthe school head, Mr Meshack Sechele said poor academic performance in the latest JC examinations forced the school to introspect and come up with strategies of improving its fortunes.

“One of the decisions was to engage the Debswana subject specialist under the Debswana Government Schools Development Programme as well as to time and again organise motivational talks by some role models in our society,” he said.

Mr Sechele indicated that the engagement of the subject specialists has been working well for schools such as Orapa Junior School, which has for sometime been the best performing junior school in the country.

Mr Sechele also indicated that one of the challenges they face is shortage of boarding facilities, which forces students from nearby villages who should be boarding to be picked as early as 430am and be dropped at 830pm.

He therefore pleaded with the minister to engage the construction company to at least handover the boarding facilities. For his part, the director of operations for Kweneng, Mr Benson Rauwe challenged Mphuthe Junior School teachers to make it one of the top performing schools in the country.

He also advised that only a happy person can produce good results, and thereby urged cordial working relations between the school management, teachers and students.

The Debswana subject specialists have been engaged by the school to assist in areas of Mathematics, Science and English. ENDs