18 Sep 2019

The general manager for Lucara Diamond Mine, Mr Johane Mchive has said Shashe River School needs to go back to its glory days of good performance.

Giving a keynote address at the school’s 50th anniversary celebrations recently, Mr Mchive said the school required all stakeholders to introspect on all the factors that contributed, to its success back then.

He said teachers, parents and the community needed to identify the main reasons why there was a downturn of performance and also find ways of eliminating such challenges.

He noted that in the early years, Shashe river school was famed for producing very good results, as in 2007 and 2008, the school got position three, but later dropped to position five in 2009.

He said the school had since seen a downward spiral in academic performance.

Mr Mchive noted that the school had produced prominent figures in different professions.

He appealed to parents to work hand in hand with teachers to give the students motivation and courage to face all the challenges in their lives.

He challenged the alumni and the business community to try the ‘adopt a school’ programme and assist the school with resources, which have proven to be a major challenge in most government schools.

Mr Mchive encouraged the students to take their studies seriously, as both the school and the community were looking up to them get the school back to its position, adding that by so doing, they would be building a foundation for a successful future.

During his welcome remarks, school head, Mr Mpaladzi Majingo said they were faced with challenges like shortage of classrooms, resulting in about four classes being sheltered in the Science laboratories.

Mr Majingo explained that there was once a plan to acquire caravans, but it failed, adding however, that they remained hopeful that when the budget constraints abate, additional classrooms would be built.

Furthermore, he said the school had fallen short of achieving the desired academic goals in the BGCSE examinations since 2014.

“To try mitigate the performance issue, the school has embarked on a number of strategies like the Open day, which has improved over the last two years,” he said.

The school head said the school was still faced with issues of indiscipline, which had led to suspensions and exclusion from boarding of some students, adding that pregnancy and desertion were other challenges facing  the school.

Mr Majingo said although the school recorded some failures, it had a positive experience in co-curricular activities such as the students contesting in the Botswana Integrated Sports Association (BISA) national competitions, Confederation of School Sport Association of Southern Africa (COSSASA) and Gaborone International Meet.

Chairperson of Shashe River School Alumni, Mr Sharman Selepe said the alumni aimed  to give back to the school and complement its efforts to improve the teaching and learning environment.

He said the alumni was committed to assisting the school return to the glory days of being in the top five in the next few years.

Mr Selepe said they also aimed to partake in the process of moulding the students to become responsible members of the community.

The 50th anniversary was also graced by the class of 1995, which awarded the best overall students, in both form four and five, certificates and P1000 while Botho University awarded students who did well during the training that the university organised under the three subjects of Biology, Mathematics and English. ENDS