21 Oct 2024

 The construction of Marulamantsi and Morula Primary Schools in Gaborone, at a tune of P160 million, is a great milestone in achieving the country’s National Vision 2036 pillar of Human and Social Development aimed at providing knowledge with quality education to Batswana at all levels.

Delivering a keynote address at the official opening of Marulamantsi Primary School in Phase 4 and Morula Primary School in Block 6 in Gaborone, on Friday, Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, Ms Annah Mokgethi said the two schools would significantly contribute to the attainment of the Botswana’s ultimate goal of becoming a high-income status country.

She said the state-of-the-art facilities would provide a conducive learning environment, hence enabling pupils and teachers to perform at their best.

Ms Mokgethi said Marulamantsi and Boseja wards had been in the priority list of proposal for a long time in the past Urban Development Plans.

These areas, she said, did not have primary schools of their own, and therefore relied on neighbouring localities, whose schools were already congested.

“The two schools are fully-fledged as per the requirement from Revised National Policy on Education of 2004, which stipulates that a standard primary school should have a maximum of 22 classrooms to cater for a minimum enrolment of 660 to a maximum of 880 pupils,” she said.

Additionally, the minister said the two schools had other amenities such as; ablution and administration blocks, library, computer laboratories, kitchen, furniture and necessary equipment.

She expressed gratitude that the two educational facilities had addressed challenge of overcrowding in schools by absorbing extra numbers of pupils from neighbouring schools. She said pupils no longer travelled long distances to school.

Ms Mokgethi said each of the two schools had enrolled a total of 720 pupils, including reception classes, had 24 teaching staff and 13 support staff, consisting cleaners, cooks and security officers.

This, she said showed that the development brought along job opportunities within the area and further to this, local economic empowerment was strengthened through awarding of works to four citizen owned companies.

Through engagement of the four citizen owned companies, the minister said a total of 1 156 people benefited in Phase 4, whist 1 400 people benefited in Block 6, either as labourers, cleaners and operators, among others.

Ms Mokgethi commended Gaborone City Council (GCC) project management unit, which was formed to ensure implementation  of the projects.

She also expressed delight that the design of the projects was done in-house with no consultant, saying this showed that there was competent personnel within government offices and there was need to capacitate them to excel in delivering their mandate.

The minister also applauded GCC for the state-of-the-art digital CCTV projects monitoring system, which was operated from its offices.

Giving the project overview, GCC town clerk, Mr Lopang Pule also expressed delight that all the two projects, that were both approved through the Economic Recovery Transformation Plan (ERTP) at a tune of P160 million, were completed within budget and specifications.

The two projects, Mr Pule said, were divided into two packages for each school, being educational facilities package and staff houses package. He also explained that the scope for the projects included the construction of double storey classroom blocks, administration block as well as single storey computer and resources centre, library, kitchen and dining and a guard house.

Other associated external works, the town clerk said included, but not limited to sewer and water reticulation, electrical works and landscaping. The scope for the staff houses, he said consisted of construction of double story staff houses (18 units) and two town houses (four units), making a total of 24 units.

Mr Pule said construction of the two primary schools were awarded to citizen owned companies. At Marulamantsi Primary School, he said the educational facilities were awarded to Balowane Building Services at a total cost of P51.9 million, whilst staff houses were awarded to C & Construction at a total cost of P23.6 million.

At Morula Primary School, he said the educational facilities were awarded to Banco Enterprises at P52.2 million, whilst staff houses were done by Tsimakgosi Construction at P23.9 million.

He expressed gratitude that contractors engaged people from the localities, resulting in improvement of the local economies.

In his vote of thanks, the Mayor of Gaborone, Mr Austin Abraham thanked the ministry for having found it fit to source funds to construct the two schools, expressing hope that they would improve academic performance by reducing the number of pupils per classroom.

He implored teachers, non-teaching staff, pupils and the community to take good care of the educational facilities, assuring them that GCC would do its best to ensure that the facilities were well maintained. Ends