21 Feb 2024

Early childhood education is important to the development of every child and government is taking steps to ensure that they are exposed to early learning, says Member of Parliament for Lentsweletau-Mmopane, Ms Nnaniki Makwinja.

Debating the 2024/25 budget proposal on Monday, Ms Makwinja, however, said early childhood education was not the sole responsibility of government.

She said the private sector had a role to play in the provision of early childhood education and further said government was working alongside the private sector to provide the education.

Ms Makwinja noted that in her constituency government was setting up a learning facility for pre-primary schooling up to Standard Three in an effort to make early childhood education accessible and to shorten the distance young learners travelled to and from school.

The legislator, who is also Assistant Minister of Education and Skills Development, said Mmakanke, Sasakwe and Ramanku would get such facilities in the coming financial year, adding that the Sasakwe facility was already being constructed.

The MP noted that in some instances learners travelled over 20 kilometers to and from the nearest primary school.

Ms Makwinja also said the education sector was faced with many challenges such as the provision of facilities for learning and teacher’s accommodation.

The MP said she was hopeful that the newly introduced Development Manager (DM) model would assist in the delivery of projects within the education sector.

On other constituency projects, she said Dikgatlhong would get a health post while the Gakuto caravan tender had been completed. However, she said there appeared to be efforts by some people to frustrate government’s efforts to service communities.

She said a classic example was the vandalism of Water  Utilities Corporation infrastructure which delayed the provision of water to the Lentsweletau-Mmopane cluster. She pleaded with community members to report such acts which hindered service delivery.

The MP was, nonetheless, optimistic that the Lentsweletau-Mmopane cluster would get water soon.

Ms Makwinja also said through her leadership her constituency managed to have more developments in the pipeline while others were under construction, citing roads linking Lentsweletau-Hatsalatladi and Kgope-Rasesa which she said were coming.

Furthermore, Ms Makwinja requested for the construction of the Kopong-Mmamashia road, saying the road was about five kilometers long.

On other issues, the MP thanked government for upgrading health posts in her constituency, adding that other challenges such as shortage of nurses had been addressed.

The MP, who supported the budget, said the ruling party has delivered on its past election promises and that other projects were ongoing. ENDS