07 Jun 2022

A blocked sewerage system at Chobe Junior Secondary School should be cause for concern as it poses a health hazard to learners. 

The lack of maintenance of school buildings contradicts the fact that the Ministry of Education receives funding for maintenance. 

He said in the last financial year a total of P1.2 billion was allocated to the ministry, and only P300 million was used. 

Mr Lesaso added however, that while the ministry needed to re-engineer its processes to ensure optimum usage of allocated funds, local contractors were also a challenge as they abandoned projects, the Chobe JSS sewerage system being a case in point. 

He many schools around the country had been abandoned by contractors in similar fashion, and regretted this impacted negatively on the education. 

He said more needed to be done with regard to project supervision as otherwise government efforts to empower citizens would not be realised. 

He called for ways to address overcrowding at the school which currently operated 43 streams instead 18. Regarding the school’s performance, Mr Lesaso said no one should use the outbreak of COVID- as an excuse given the school’s was performing poorly even before the pandemic. 

However, he said neither teachers nor students alone should blamed for the poor performance all stakeholders should be on board for the education of children. Mr Lesaso encouraged schools and publics to identify gaps that contributed to poor performance before putting the blame on any of the stakeholders in the education system. 

Earlier the school head, Mr Nelson Litiho said for a school that was established in 1985, the only maintenance ever done was ‘replace and fit’ during the 2013/14 financial year. 

He said all cyclic maintenance of the school was deferred, which compromised its sewerage infrastructure and other facilities. Mr Litiho said teachers’ accommodation was also a challenge given there were only 50 staff housing units against 82 teachers. 

He said the school attained a 27 per cent pass rate against the 50 per cent national target in the 2021 Junior Certificate Examinations, but expressed hope that the pass rate would improve. 

He said seven of 24 learners graded X in the exam were later found to have been erroneously failed, and had since been admitted to senior secondary school. ends