24 Sep 2013

Police Investigations into the horrifying incident in which body parts of a dog were strewn across seven classrooms at Maun Senior Secondary School, are continuing, principal education officer, Mr Kaaya Koruyezu said on September 23. Mr Koruyezu who was briefing the North West full council meeting said meanwhile, “We are providing psychological support for both students and teachers”, he added.

Classes were disrupted recently after students discovered various internal and external dog parts and a snake head in six classrooms. Mr Koruyezu observed the incident, which he described as a criminal offense, had disturbed the ministry. Meanwhile the regional director Mr Acronews Maseko said in an interview that the regional primary school academic performance for the second term had improved from 35.2 per cent to 42.9 per cent- 7.7 per cent improvement.

He said the ministry still had challenges with secondary schools as only a slight increase in junior secondary school was realised. The schools registered 52.7 up from 52.2 per cent  which is only a 0.5 per cent improvement.
Mr Maseko said to address the problem, the region would embark on school inspections, workshops on remediation and training staff on course work to improve the results.

He also noted that the region had 373 drop outs. However most of the learners had been re-admitted.

“About 52 students left school due to pregnancy, 68 deserted and so far the region has re-admitted 323 students”, he said. The director also noted that all schools had functional Parents and Teachers’ Associations (PTA) which was a result of a stakeholder Pitso held previously in the district. He said they also managed to a form regional PTA committee and a regional mentors committee. All the committees visit schools to offer support to both teachers and parents.

Regarding maintenance of schools, Mr Maseko said Maun Technical College had done a lot to promote maintenance. He said the college has managed to rehabilitate some structure at Maun Senior Secondary School such as classrooms, the laboratory and multi-purpose hall.

Minor maintenance was also done at several schools and outdoor teaching areas have been turned into classrooms. Mr Maseko said some of the challenges that impeded their efforts were teenage pregnancy, alcohol abuse, shortage of water in schools, and attracting and retaining teachers. ENDS