27 Oct 2020

Minister of Basic Education (MoBE), Mr Fidelis Molao says his ministry is doing fairly well in mitigating the spread of COVID-19 in schools.

He said this during a courtesy call by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) country representative Dr Joan Matji, yesterday.

The UNICEF entourage handed learning material worth P1.2m to the minister, as continuity of their support towards the MoBE.

Minister Molao updated the UNICEF representatives on the status of basic education and how the relationship between UNICEF and MoBE has benefited schools. 

He said despite the COVID-19 pandemic the partnership would continue to be strengthened as it had proved to be fruitful.

 The minister said that they would continue to collaborate in terms of provision for general education especially at basic level right from early childhood, where their support  had shown to be meaningful and visible.

He noted that his ministry had done quite well in the provision of out of school education which was one area where there was a bit of a challenge due to lack of resources.

He said mopping up everybody back into the formal school system had proved to be a mammoth task worldwide. 

Therefore Mr Molao highlighted and appreciated the support of the out of school education programme by UNICEF, saying that it played a great role in ensuring that access to education for most of the people.

He also highlighted that early childhood programme was almost at 80 per cent coverage because COVID-19 had disrupted its implementation.  

The Minister said lack of resources exerted a lot of strain on the budget and called upon other stakeholders such as churches and other entities to assist with facilities.

“Collaborating with UNICEF would enable us to develop some models where we can expand classrooms or any workable model that can help to open up more spaces for the children as this was an important component that needs to be strengthened,” he said.

He noted that MoBE had also delivered successfully on Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE) because 99.99 percent of pupils who sat for the examinations had completed and were now getting into other phase of Secondary Schools.

Mr Molao also thanked UNICEF for the study and reading material that was accessed from Botswana Open University because students were able to continue with their programmes even during lockdowns.

For her part the UNICEF country representative Dr Joan Matji congratulated Botswana on being one of the first 21 countries to reopen schools in a timely manner following the COVID-19 outbreak.

She also acknowledged the efforts that the ministry made in making necessary changes and adjustments to ensure that schools were ready to welcome learners back safely and in full compliance with COVID-19 protocols.

“UNICEF is always ready to support MoBE in its efforts to ensure access to quality education,” said Dr Matji.

She emphasised that enabling quality education was a priority for the ministry and the teams were working together to develop National Remediation and Enrichment programme.

Dr Matji further explained that the programme would provide an insight into the hindrances for learning in Botswana as well as provide tools to ensure that learners across all levels of learning received the support required to succeed in their studies.

“UNICEF was also aware of the importance that the government of Botswana holds in early learning hence our continued support on Early Childhood Development (ECD).

We are now supporting the Ministry in development of ECD Public-Private Partnership model,” she said.

She urged the minister to consider increased support for children with disabilities as one of the most vulnerable groups in society.

She said there was need to be proactive to ensure that children with disabilities were also empowered academically.  

Dr Matji handed over the learning material that would support learning and she stated that the material had been already distributed across all public schools.

She said the material had benefited about 65 000 learners in junior secondary schools.

She said UNICEF together with ministry had developed and printed workbooks for the reception class learners in order to close the gap that existed as a result of prolonged school closure for children in ECD. 

The learning material would benefit approximately 20,000 children that are enrolled.

She said UNICEF was committed to continue supporting Botswana government in meeting the aspirations of education for all Batswana children because education could significantly help Botswana achieve the Vision 2036 over-arching goal of prosperity for all. Ends