18 Sep 2018

Botswana Unified Revenue Service (BURS) has donated 175 tables to Kutlwano Junior Secondary School while Mr Stewart Matikiti donated 40 conference chairs to them as well. 

Officiating at Kutlwano JSS prize giving ceremony in Gweta recently, BURS commissioner for customs services, Mr Phodiso Valashia said the theme of the event accorded well with their mandate, adding it was the reason they associated themselves with event. 

He said they believed that when students work hard in their studies, they would contribute meaningfully to the economy of Botswana later on their lives and BURS would benefit by way of tax revenues. 

The event was celebrated under the theme; Determination and Perseverance Yields Success. 

He explained that since they were willing to support education in Botswana they would have a Memorandum of Agreement with the school management to adopt them. 

He said they believed the gesture would go a long way in assisting the school management to create an enabling learning environment for the effective delivery of school programmes, thereby producing students that would drive the economy of the country for generations to come. 

Mr Valashia said the notion of perseverance and hard work formed one of the cornerstones and founding principles of the republic of Botswana as it was considered one of the poorest countries in the world when they attained independence in 1966. 

He said at the time, Botswana’s economy and development prospects were deemed almost non-existent.

Further, he said founding leaders rallied Batswana to develop the country based on the spirit of Ipelegeng, which then raised the economic status of the country to an upper middle income economy.

In that respect, he said Batswana worked hard to build roads and schools with the less sophisticated machinery.

Therefore he said all their efforts uplifted the economy of the country as today the country has many schools, thousands of university graduates as well as over 7 560 kilometres of network of tarred roads.

He also noted that despite the challenges of shortage of textbooks in the school and lack of transport, students succeeded academically as some were in the top 20 JC results of 2018 and had received an award for the sterling performance. 

He said softball and basketball girls teams reached the national finals and won silver and bronze medals respectively, while some qualified for the national Science Olympiads.

Mr Valashia said they got excited when Batswana worked hard and succeeded in their vocation either individually or in their business as BURS would be able to collect more taxes from them to be spent on the development of the country. 

He said the revenue that they collected was utilised by government to develop roads; educational facilities such as schools, health facilities such as hospitals and clinics, pays salaries of government employees and social services such as old age pension, disability and destitution allowances and others. 

He encouraged leaners to work extremely hard so that they could earn a better life. For his part, Mr Matikiti said during his visit to the school, he realised the school had shortages of furniture.

“I believe in education and I have realised that an unhappy teacher is a less productive teacher,” he said, adding that would ultimately affect students.

Meanwhile Tutume Sub-district principal education officer, Mr Kenneth Habana appreciated the donations.

He said the gesture would address shortage of furniture, especially that Form Threes were about to write their final exams. 

He urged teachers to use the resources responsibly to improve the academic performance of the school. He encouraged teachers to work hard to produce good results. ENDS