23 Jan 2020

Montsamaisa Junior Secondary School leads the pack in the northern region in the junior certificate results.

Addressing a kgotla meeting at Phillip Matante East Ward in Block 4, Member of Parliament for Francistown South, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi said the school was synonymous with goods and had previously obtained position two or three regionally.

He said the achievement was subsequent to parents who made sure that pupils took their studies seriously and pupils who took their school work seriously.

Mr Mmolotsi further informed residents that the economy was not performing well with a growth rate of 3.3 per cent against the expected 4.4 per cent.

He said the decline was due to the output fall in mining, especially importers who chose to buy manufactured diamonds instead of real ones.

As a result, Mr Mmolotsi said the country was relying on tourism, small, medium and micro enterprises and banking as a source of income.

MP Mmolotsi said Botswana had about P74.2 billion in foreign reserves, enough to sustain the country for 15 months.

Of the amount, Mr Mmolotsi said about P19.5 billion belonged to government while the remainder was for the private sector.

He said given that Botswana was concerned about education, government started early childhood learning in 590 pre-schools out of 755 primary schools in the country.

He said the government was looking at changing the curriculum to outcome based education, where pupils would mostly be taught subjects of their interest to mould them towards their career choice and areas of interest.

Mr Mmolotsi stated that Maun with its tourism activities would offer tourism and hospitality courses and the region around Moeng could offer agriculture related courses. He said government was keen to improve languages and was working on the language in education policy so that pupils could be taught in their mother tongue.

Mr Mmolotsi also shared that a rehabilitation facility was planned for Serowe to cater for those affected by drug and substance abuse.

“Drugs are killing our children. In a period of about 10 years 50, 60 per cent of youth will have mental problems and we will end up with a generation of people with mental problems,” stated Mr Mmolotsi.

The centre, he said, would be ready in about 10 months.

He said there was a centre in Lobatse but parents that refused to take their affected family members there on the pretext that their children were not insane.

Court president, Kgosi Pogisego Mosarwe urged residents not to allow politics to infiltrate and divide the community.

Kgosi Mosarwe urged them not to wear party colours when they go to seek help at the constituency office and advised them to work well with their MP and councillors.

For their part, residents complained that the youth smoked dagga and used drugs in public. They said those not addicted were in some way affected by drug and substance abuse.

Residents advised that the education department should tell parents to buy their children books as early as December to prepare for the following year so that pupils did not start the year without books.

Residents also appealed to the transport department not to flag cars but rather licenses since most vehicles would have been borrowed and the offenders went scot-free. ENDS