19 Sep 2013

Permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education and Skills Development, Ms Grace Muzila says pre-school education will be rolled out to other districts  after successful piloting in one region with six primary schools.

Appearing before the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on September 17, Ms Muzila said pre-school education started this year but, the initiation had so far proved to be doing well.

“We realised midway that there is no need to wait for two years to analyse the results,” she said. She noted that other countries such as Mauritius were sitting on 95 per cent of learners enrolled for standard one, coming from pre-schools while Botswana was at 18 per cent. “The reason why they are doing better than us in many other aspects is that their education system is very good and they are doing the right things,” she said.

She said the ministry wanted to increase from 18 to 40 per cent in some couple of years, saying the only way to achieve that was to start now. She said she was aware that there was no provision of facilities of people as young as those at pre-schools, but noted that the programme will start without facilities. She said a number of district councils are ready for the initiation of pre-schools.

A member of PAC, also Ngwaketse North MP, Mr Kentse Rammidi had asked why the pre-primary education was not outsourced to Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) that are under utilised around the country. “Most churches have got facilities and institutions such as YCWA, BCW could provide the service provided government paid the tuition for pre-education,” he said. Ms Muzila responded by saying the ministry will explore using the civil society in future. ENDS