18 Feb 2024

Allowing schools to admit pupils beyond their establishment enrolment capacity is affecting academic performance.

The MP for Serowe South, Mr Leepetswe Lesedi said when debating the 2024/25 budget speech in Parliament recently.

He called for the decongesting of schools, arguing that the current situation impacted pupil’s performance. He said Mothamo JSS in his constituency had over 1 300 pupils against its establishment capacity of 800. 

He called for more boarding school in Shoshong to decongest Mothamo Junior. Also, Mr Lesedi called for the maintenance and provision of learning materials for schools in his constituency. He said there was severe shortage of books and tables while classrooms, boarding facilities and toilets also needed to be maintained.

On the Constituency Development Fund, the MP said the current P10 million was not enough. He said although government decided to channel the funds towards roads construction, the impact was insignificant. 

The MP further called for the maintenance of roads in the Serowe South constituency.

Another MP, Mr Liakat Kably of Letlhakeng/Lephepe said the Ministry of Education and Skills Development should ensure that schools acquired photocopying machines. He said it was unsavoury for the school management to be running from one office to another requesting to photocopy pupils’ examination papers.

He also said there was need to address education challenges facing Mphuthe JSS in his constituency. He noted that it came last during the recently released JC results with a pass rate of 15 per cent. The MP also said he supported the auditing of ministries, departments and state-owned enterprises, arguing that it was long overdue.

He said an audit would reveal why people in his constituency were not getting services yet government had allocated money for those services. He further said the newly established Letlhakeng District Council needed to be audited as it was not adequately servicing the community, adding that non-performing executives should be dismissed. 

Mr Kably also called for the grading of roads in his constituency and said time had come for councils to buy graders.ends