26 Feb 2019

Chobe District Council chairperson, Councillor Paul Chabaesele has told the councillors that efforts were being made to improve the low Junior Certificate Examinations (JCE) results in the region.

Speaking at the on-going full council meeting Cllr Chabaesele said Chobe and Liswaani junior secondary schools had failed to meet the national set target of 50 per cent during the 2018 JCE results.

He said Chobe JSS scored 35.6 per cent while Liswaani JSS scored 29.6 per cent, thus placing the region at position five nationally.

He told the councillors that the basic education regional operations office continues to employ strategies to improve the performance outlook.

He said the regional office assists teachers in the low performing subjects and school support programme.

Mr Chabaesele further said syllabus coverage audit continued to deliver positive turnaround, as there was continuous monitoring of compliance to programmes and processes. However, he said primary schools continued to impress by performing well at Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE).

He said in the 2018 PSLE results the region met the 80 per cent national and regional target by realising 80.6 per cent compared to 72.8 per cent in 2017.

Councillor Chabaesele said the region was declared the second most improved after Ghanzi and efforts were being made to ensure that the region improved to be the best nationally.

He commended the regional operations office for ensuring eight out of 10 schools performed above the national target with Mabele scooping position one in the region by 90.9 per cent.

On crime reduction and prevention, the council chairperson said the crime situation in the district was currently manageable because from September to December last year a total of 19 cases of violent and serious crime were recorded against a set target of 22, which was a decrease of 17 per cent.

He commended police volunteers for their job well done in working tirelessly with the police to ensure that house break-ins were managed.

He further urged the councillors to encourage their communities to participate fully on the cluster policing strategy because it had worked tremendously in the areas where communities had shown interest.

He however said there was an increase in cases of store break-in and theft and threat to kill, adding that the level of drug trafficking and abuse was generally on the increase.

“Cannabis still remains the main drug problem in our policing area and most of the drugs that are consumed are smuggled from Francistown and Gaborone,” he said.

He however  said the deployment of SSG unit at the border posts has deterred smuggling of drugs from neighbouring countries. ENDS