19 Mar 2023

Assistant Minister of Education and Skills Development, Mr Aubrey Lesaso has vowed to help fast-track maintenance of Mmadinare Senior Secondary school.

The school opened its doors in 2011 and is challenged by a malfunctioning transformer, which often results in disrupted power supply in the science, design and technology laboratories and the kitchen.

During his visit to the school on Friday, Mr Lesaso was accompanied by the area MP Mr Molebatsi Molebatsi to appreciate the challenges and acknowledged how lack of electricity in some laboratories and the school kitchen affected teaching and learning.

He said his ministry was concerned by the declining academic results as well as dilapidating infrastructure in junior and senior schools, hence the decision to ensure that the infrastructure in schools was maintained to provide a conducive environment for teaching and learning.

However, Mr Lesaso decried financial constraints and explained that 85 per cent of the ministry’s budget was the recurrent budget.

Since the development budget was not sufficient to undertake all the necessary developments, he said the ministry was looking into engaging brigades and technical colleges to carry out maintenance in schools instead of engaging companies, which charged a lot of money.

Furthermore, Mr Lesaso commended the school for improved performance in the 2022 BGCSE results.

The school moved from position 31 out of 34 senior schools to position 19.

He urged the school to continue improving academic performance and pledged to give the school P20 000 if they reached a 50 per cent pass rate or P10 000 if they increased their performance by 10 per cent in the next coming examination.

Mr Molebatsi also commended the school for the positive improvement in the 2022 academic results and contributed P10 000 towards the celebration of the 2022 academic results.

However, he motivated them to work harder to improve the performance of the school, urging them to work together as a team for the betterment of the school’s performance.

He encouraged pupils to desist from drugs and alcohol and pay more attention to their studies.

For his part, the school head Mr Pelaelo Makole thanked the assistant ministers for visiting the school to appreciate the challenges, particularly the electricity problem, which had been nagging them for six months now.

The teachers urged Mr Lesaso to address issues of teachers’ welfare such as stagnation, overstaying and shortage of accommodation.

They also assured the visiting officials of their commitment to improving academic results. ENDS