04 Aug 2019

Minister of Basic Education, Mr Bagalatia Arone says Jwaneng Mines operate one private school, which is called Acacia Primary School.

Mr Arone told Parliament that the school started operating in 1979 and had an enrollment of 770 pupils, constituting both 203 pupils at pre-school and 667 at primary school level.

He said in terms of capacity, the maximum class size at pre-school was capped at 20 and 25 per class at primary school.

He, however, pointed out that the small physical size of some  classrooms limited the intake.

Mr Arone said there were 58 members of the teaching staff, comprising 49 citizens and nine non-citizens, adding that non-citizens were one Zambian, three South Africans and five Zimbabweans.

He said the academic performance of Acacia Primary School at PSLE in 2018 stood at 80 per cent.

 He said As and Bs was 17 per cent and Cs stood at three percent.

He also noted that there were 26 pupils whose parents or guardians did not work for Debswana whilst 744 pupils were Debswana employees’ children.

Mr Arone stated that  admission into the school depended on availability of spaces, and on passing the school’s entrance examination.

He also explained that the private school was established to attract and retain employees of the mine who may otherwise prefer to place their children into boarding schools.

He further said the private school was accessible to other non-Debswana employees whenever there was availability of spaces. 

On the teacher pupil ratio, he stated that they ranged from 1:19 to 1:25 from pre-school to primary school.

Jwaneng MP, Mr Shawn Nthaile had asked the minister to update on the status of Debswana Jwaneng Mine owned private schools.

He wanted to know when the school was built, the current school enrollment versus capacity and the number and nationalities of the teaching staff.

He further wanted to know the number of pupils related to the mine employees and those that were not as well as the teacher –pupil ratio.

Furthermore, he wanted to know the policy and criteria for accepting new pupils and the steps that were in place to ensure that Debswana private schools were accessible to all residents regardless of where they were employed.  ENDS