04 Dec 2023

Learners  have been advised to work hard in their studies as education can open opportunities them.

Speaking during a sponsored walk geared towards raising funds for the 85th anniversary celebration of Zwenshambe Primary School on Saturday, Vice President Mr Slumber Tsogwane said education brought light, put food on one’s table, opened doors for greener pastures and could expose one to government financial programmes with ease.

Also, he said to achieve a knowledge based economy, it was important for the country achieve quality education.
He said government wanted to produce scientist, innovators and people who could positively contribute to the country’s development and compete for jobs in the international arena.

For instance, Mr Tsogwane said, the country needed an education that could produce graduate who could manufacture aircrafts, computers, and those who could invent products through technology.

Mr Tsogwane encouraged Batswana to patent their innovations and commercialise them to improve their lives.

He thanked North East parents as well as teachers of Zwenshambe Primary School for their contribution to the high performance of the school.

Mr Tsogwane was earlier on informed that the school was performing well having achieved 93.3 per cent pass rate in 2020, 95 per cent in 2021 and 86.1 per cent in 2022 in Primary School Leaving Examinations.

He said it was not surprising that two visionaries in Zwenshambe started the school 85 years ago, even before the country attained independence as the people of North East District had always treated education with utmost importance.

He told residents that education was one of the social indicators of development, the other being health amongst others.

Mr Tsogwane said government promoted education through top achievers initiative so that pupils who performed well could be enrolled into the world’s best universities.

On the purpose of the day, Mr Tsogwane said the walk was not only for raising funds as it also contributed positively to the health of the people.

“You must make exercising a norm to reduce chances of non-communicable diseases, he said.

“Our parents used to walk long distances to fetch water from faraway rivers, look for livestock, and go to their farms located afar,” he said adding that all these contributed to their good health.

He urged the community to take responsibility of their health as it only took a mindset change to invest in one’s health.

In his welcome remarks, Kgosi Moses Mabutho of Zwenshambe said the school had a good performance record.

He said the school received 50 tablets 10 laptops and was SMARTBOTS connected.

He however noted that the school was faced with challenges that included lack of text books, lack of staff furniture, staff toilets, which were in a bad state, shortage of classrooms and  staff accommodation.

Zwenshambe 85th anniversary celebration coordinating chairperson, Mr Stanley Mapiki said the objective of the walk was  to raise funds to meet the educational needs  of Zwenshambe Primary School pupils.

The other objective was to mobilise resources for the school and learners.

The walk that raised a total of P25 300 and Vice President  gifted the school P5300. Ends