15 Jan 2014

Indiscipline and substance abuse among students in Mogoditshane are responsible for poor results that continue to characterise schools in the village, the area MP has said.

Addressing chiefs in Mogoditshane on January 15, Mr Patrick Masimolole said the situation was compounded by parents who abdicated from responsibilities and left the moulding of children to teachers.

Mr Masimolole said despite their proximity to Gaborone, schools in Mogoditshane performed worse than those in remote areas. He said one of the reasons for poor school results in Mogoditshane was that students bunked classes to attend recording of television programmes such as Mokaragana and My Star.

He added that it was unfortunate that parents seemed to condone such behaviour because they never reprimanded their children for doing so. Mr Masimolole, also assistant minister of education and skills development, said indiscipline and drug abuse would lead to the education system producing social misfits such as criminals.

He urged chiefs in Mogoditshane to visit schools to get the feel of the problems faced by teachers. Perhaps, they could then encourage parents to be active in the education of their children.

He said infrastructure put up by government across Botswana, the back-to-school programme and commendable job by teachers were not enough to mould children into responsible citizens if parents took the back seat.

Mr Masimolole said it was worrying if some parents were overprotective and took teachers to task even when their children were disciplined for possessing dangerous objects such as knives at school.

For their part, chiefs complained that bad behavior in schools was a result of stoppage of corporal punishment and the human rights issues that confused the need for discipline. They said vendors who operated in front of school premises sold drugs to students. Such vendors should be evicted.

At the same meeting, school heads complained that they spent most of their time attending to parents grievances after their children were disciplined for bad behavior. They said such parents always failed to visit schools when invited to pre-empt disciplinary problems. ENDS