19 Sep 2013

The Ministry of Education and Skills Development has taken a decision to phase out Moral Education as a subject and replace it with Life Skills.

When addressing secondary school heads during the national school heads conference in Palapye on September 18, deputy permanent secretary in the education ministry, Mr David Ratsatsi said an agreement was reached to examine moral education until 2014.

“Therefore this year’s Form 4 students cannot take Moral Education as it will not be examined next year. We are still negotiating with Cambridge through Botswana Examinations Council (BEC) to see if they can examine the subject for one more year,” he said.

Mr Ratsatsi urged parents to continue teaching Moral Education even though it is not examined anymore, saying some countries had subjects that were taught but not examined. He added that the ministry intended to implement the new curriculum in 2015, which incorporated a component of Life Skills instead of Moral Education.

He said Moral Education teachers would be engaged in teaching Life Skills and given some orientation.“Life Skills will be a core subject hence more teachers will be engaged. The subject will be weighed the same as others and carry the same credit rating during aggregation,” said Mr Ratsatsi.

Touching on the issue of poor performance by schools, Mr Ratsatsi urged school heads to form pyramids and work with others to develop students from primary school level to ensure that secondary schools a fed with better quality students.He urged secondary school heads to work hand in hand with feeder schools in their locality to build children.

“The Ministry has engaged consultants to develop education standards which all schools will be expected to adhere to,” said Mr Ratsatsi. Ends