26 Aug 2026

Acting Minister at the Ministry of Child Welfare and Basic Education, Mr Justin Hunyepa has applauded Moeding College’s proposal to be allowed to maximise the school bakery by extending their production beyond self-feeding to supplying other institutions in the area. 

In his address to Moeding College’s teaching and non-teaching staff recently, Mr Hunyepa said the move would be a good initiative for income generation. 

He further encouraged the school to even consider supplying uniforms as a way of enforcing technical skills and production for further income generation to the mission school. 

Earlier, the school staff had told him that the generated funds would help on issues of school maintenance. 

The acting minister said with regards to issues of maintenance, government has engaged an infrastructure company to help in refurbishing schools. 

Mr Hunyepa also encouraged teachers to have other income generating streams since salary alone was not sufficient to accumulate wealth. 

He said teachers should maximise their professional skills and empower themselves through making use of their available free time. 

Mr Hunyepa said they should live up to the skills they impart to leaners and be exemplary, by so doing empowering themselves financially, hence promoting their financial portfolios. 

The acting minister said each professional skill was capable of paving way to wealth, further stating that the country was loaded with wealth opportunities yet to be explored. 

He challenged them to venture into production of goods and services as well as writing books for passive income. 

Also, he highlighted that under BETP, an international company, Permando Associates, has been identified to help turn around the economy. 

He said the company had identified seven sectors through, which the economy could remarkably be transformed. 

The sectors are Agriculture, tourism, mining, renewable energy, manufacturing, health and education. 

He highlighted that availability of solar energy could be maximised throughout the year and even challenged Science and Design and Technology teachers to creatively maximise the opportunity saying the BETP programme can be of benefit even in the classrooms. 

Mr Hunyepa said they could sustain the school through various production disciplines and equip leaners to thrive outside school.

Earlier when addressing the students, Mr Hunyepa encouraged them to be diligent in upholding discipline and the institution’s image, saying doing that would take them a long way even after their educational journey. 

He further advised for wise, positive and profitable use of cellphones to enhance their studies, cautioning them that cellphone use could either make or break them. 

The acting South East Regional Director in the Ministry  of Child Welfare and Basic Education, Mr Kwante Kwante applauded the ministry’s continued efforts of offering promotions. 

When responding to Moeding College staff grievances, he said all has been done in relation to teachers’welfare in the South Region, especially through established boards to facilitate teachers’ promotions. 

He told the teachers that the South East Region has submitted all names of teachers with more than two years in the C1 scale for consideration to senior teacher grade 1 positions together with those in D4 to D3 scales.

Mr Kwante said the exercise would enable the board to work with all qualifying names availed to them. 

However, he said it was subject to limited available positions to all teachers in the same level across the nation. 

Highlighting on the promotional criterion, Mr Kwante said there were requirements to be fulfilled such as academic performance, which he said were aided by the ministry’s set targets of 70 per cent pass mark for the teachers’ class performance at primary schools, while at both junior and senior secondary schools qualifying level was at 50 percent of their class pass rates. 

On special education, he said it was a government policy aided by carrying assessments on children. He said assessing special children should be a continuous process, which could be best carried out while children were at an early age not just for purposes of examination. 

On other issues, Mr Kwante said delayed payments of boarding assistants, could highly be due to some delays in offices and therefore advised that proper tracking of submission process should be done. 

“Overtime is supposed to be requested and authorised by the employer, on the basis of available pending work,” he said and further requested teachers to desist from working unauthorised overtime, saying that perpetuates overtime challenges as it’s often budgeted for. 

Mr Kwante said scarce skills has a committee at the ministry, with a list of subjects considered under scarce skills. 

He said for teachers to earn special education allowance, the policy required that one should work in a school established with a special education unit, with the teacher offering special education skills service coupled with a scarce skills qualification.

Moeding College Head, Ms Thabologo Nageng appreciated efforts by the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa (UCCSA) and the government for efforts made towards some completed maintenance needs. 

She decried the limited subvention grant from the government, saying it is overwhelmed by catering for payments of non-teaching staff. 

Ms Nageng requested the government to consider absorbing the non-teaching staff into the government pool, saying the move would better their welfare at the same time leaving a room to maximise the funds for school sustenance. ends