27 May 2018

Permanent Secretary to the President, Mr Carter Morupisi has called on parents to actively participate in their children’s education.

Mr Morupisi said this at a victory celebration for Malaka Primary School, which was sponsored by Bayport, Nandos and Builders World.

“We should encourage our children and make them understand the importance of education because being educated can surely improve their lives,” he said.

Mr Morupisi, who is the patron of the school, said President Mokgweetsi Masisi had put education among his priorities.

“Our President has indicated that education is the only way, which we can build our country and satisfy the demands in our workforce and offer training that would enable our children to work in other countries,” he said.

He said, it was therefore important to ensure that such became a reality and encouraged learners to work hard and put more efforts in their studies.

Bayport executive chairperson, Mr Father Maphongo said it was time for Ministry of Basic Education to align the school curriculum to the needs of the industry.

He said the ministry should consider including entrepreneurship in the curriculum as it would expose learners to business skills early on, so that by the time they graduated at tertiary, they would have thought through the business venture they were interested in.

“In this way, overdependence on government to create jobs for all will be reduced. Government may run the risk of losing those teaching such subjects because they would be likely to want to start their own businesses, which would be fine because they would create employment,” he said.

Mr Maphongo advised parents to partner with teachers since their participation was important and had far reaching effects on the performance and general development of learners.

“Your participation should not be passive. It is quite pleasing to hear that you have an active member of the PTA who doubles up as the patron of the school and also Permanent Secretary to the President. Despite his busy schedule he makes time for the development of the school and to be part of the learner development,” he said.

Mr Maphongo said it was important for teachers to partner with the business sector in order to create an enabling environment to foster learning.

“The environment must be conducive for the pupils to learn without hindrance and also be welcoming and friendly for them to thrive so that they give their all,” he said.

Mr Maphongo said Bayport would continue to support government initiatives where possible, especially community-based initiatives.

He challenged teachers to constantly search for ways to better deliver their subjects.

“Teachers should be dynamic so that they can deliver interesting and challenging work. It is only then that we can expect quality, which is highly needed by stakeholders,” he said.

He said education officers should hold head teachers accountable for the performance of schools and of individual classes.

“It is also important that we reward good performance and do something about bad performance.”

 “The result we have seen in the past few years have been a concern to most of us, so much so that we worry whether we will ever get skilled personnel,” he said.

The school head, Ms Ipelegeng Ipelegeng said the school had been performing well over the years and recorded ABC pass rates of 88 per cent in 2013, 72.2 per cent in 2014, 92.6 per cent in 2015, 95 per cent in 2016 and 92.9 per cent in 2017.

She said last term, the standard seven classes had recorded percentage pass rate of 96.6 adding that they intended to improve with an AB pass rate next year.

“As reflected in our result, it is very clear that our school is performing well.

This is all possible with the support granted by parents, our patron, Mr Morupisi and the wife. We really appreciate the support,” she said. ENDS