15 Mar 2020

Parliament has been informed that all school going children were facilitated to access education through enrolment for reception, standards one and drop out re-enrollment.

This was said by the Assistant Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Sethabelo Modukanele recently.

 He also told the House that he was not aware of any children staying in Ghanzi farms who did not have prospects of going to school.

Mr Modukanele said the ministry through the Ghanzi District Council (GDC) rounded up the farms every October in order to ensure that no child of school going age was left behind.

Currently, he noted that there were 116 pupils registered for standard 1 and 8 under re-enrolment for standards 2, 4 and 5.

The farm workers and children, he said, had their homes in the settlements of Ghanzi and they only entered the farms to provide labour.

The assistant minister said there were five hostels at GDC that were exclusively intended to accommodate Remote Area Communities children.

He said he was not aware of landless people who resided in remote areas and were properties of farm owners.

He further said the ministry provided support for pupils at the beginning of every term with school uniform, protective clothing, and transport to and from school as well as psycho-social support throughout the school term.

Mr Modukanele said the ministry in collaboration with Non-Governmental Organisations such as Stepping Stone International and Window of Hope provided psycho-social support services to the children with great emphasis on the importance and value of education.

He further said farm workers were free like any other Motswana to apply for land anywhere in Botswana.

Moreover, he said government established Remote Area Communities’ settlements where farm workers were encouraged to apply for land and such settlements had facilities.

He was responding to a question from Ghanzi South MP, Mr Motsamai Motsamai, who had asked if the ministry was aware of school going children who stayed in farms in Ghanzi farms without prospects of ever going to school.

He asked the minister to state the total estimated number of such children and also wanted the ministry to state whether children and their parents were landless and whether they were properties of the farm owners.

Mr Motsamai also wanted to know what interventions were in place to ensure that children living permanently in the farms had access to schools.

The legislator also asked if there were interventions in place to ensure that landless farm owners working in the farms had access to ownership of land. Ends