24 Feb 2020

Mahalapye Sub-district councillors says poor performance during the final examinations in the three levels of basic education, in 2019 calls for action.

During the on-going council Mahalapye Sub-district Council meeting, the councilors expressed concern over poor performance in schools across the sub-district.

They were responding to the sub-council chairperson’s speech Specially Nominated councillor, Ms Tshireletso Motshabi who expressed concern over poor results in both junior and senior secondary schools.

Ms Motshabi said it was disheartening that pupils obtained good results in primary schools ‘only to drop in performance as they ascend to higher institutions’.

“This shows that something is not right in the system, because junior secondary school is where learners advance their learning and the curriculum should interrelate, hence pupilss should be able to keep up,” she added.

She also noted that there was need to keep an eye on teachers to see whether they performed their work to the latter. 

In addition, Ms Motshabi said schools were dilapidated, hence they needed urgent attention. She cited the Mokobeng Junior Secondary School situation, adding that the state of boarding facility forced some parents to withdraw their children from the school.

The chair therefore, pleaded with the Sub-Council to ensure the situation was addressed, as it was unlikely to get good performance from learners under such poor conditions for learning.

“I plead with this honourable house to make sure that we create a conducive learning environment for these kids, so that tomorrow we may be in a position to make demands for good performance knowing that we have done all that we could do as far as our responsibility is concerned,” she said.

Mahalapye East Specially Elected Councilor, Ms Mercia Sebonape said she was aware of the issue of shortage of classrooms in schools and that some learners were taught under trees.

Despite that, she emphasised that such did not qualify as a reason for poor performance, saying ‘even in the past this kind of condition still existed, but pupils did well at school regardless.’

She also appealed to parents to stop blaming teachers and do some self-introspection, stressing that home was the first place where a child received the first training, therefore if the child was not disciplined at home he or she would be a problem even at school.

“We cannot turn a blind eye that children have become more dangerous to the teachers at schools, since some go carrying weapons like knives to school,” she added.

She cited the recent incident where a Madiba Senior Secondary School teacher was assaulted by a pupil, stressing that good performance could not be expected from pupils of such nature whom teachers could not even discipline.

Mahalapye Central council representative, Mr Joseph Tjienda blamed parents for poor performance and learners indiscipline. 

“There is no one to blame but us as parents, we have completely lost our way because we don’t want to raise our children the way our parents raised us,” he added.

He said it was unfortunate that modern day parents believed that their parents did not raise them well hence they tried to make up for things they never had whilst growing up by ensuring their children got them.

Mr Tjienda expressed concern that parents bought children expensive gadgets, which they always carried and gave more attention to than their school work.

He also noted that learners spent more time on social media and watching television uncontrolled, hence they had full access to all television programmes even those not suitable for their age, something that he said  was the root cause of poor performance in schools.’

Mahalapye Central councilor urged parents to be full time parents to their children and put their future before everything. 

In his comments, Parwe Ward councilor, Mr Sampson Kelebale, said despite all it was imperative to applaud the efforts of the present day government in the education system.

He said unlike in other SADC countries, where parents had to dig from their pockets to finance the education of their children, in  Botswana government provided its citizens with free education.

On other issues, councillors shared the sentiment that there was delay in poverty eradication packages, saying some beneficiaries who had received training some years back, were still waiting for their packages. 

They said that some might have forgotten what they were trained on due to lack of practice.

ENDS