Letsholathebe: A revolutionary educationist
Lesedi Mkhutshwa | Monday March 14, 2022 06:00
Letsholathebe joined MSSS back in 2001 as head of pastoral care department when the school was ranked amongst the lowest performing nationally. Masunga SSS started improving its performance under the leadership of Letsholathebe in 2012. The school made history when it attained position two nationally in the 2019 Botswana General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGCSE) final examination results with a pass mark of 46.74%.
Since then, it remained undefeated as it scooped first position nationally in 2020 and 2021 with 43.45% and 42.45% respectively.
In an interview with Mmegi, Letsholathebe said when she took the role of head teacher, things were not rosy and the school was known for its unruly culture and poor performance. She indicated that there were lots of strikes and then continuous students’ riots as they lacked discipline and at some point the school was even labeled as a hotspot. She added that by then the school was ranked at around position 20 and 24 nationally.
The school head hailed pastoral policy, which was introduced by the Ministry of Basic Education as it came in handy at the time to address the then prevailing situation. She explained that the policy was meant to attend to discipline in schools by dividing them into mini manageable institutions.
She further said the policy emphasised stakeholder participation from the school, student governance and the adopt-a-school initiative.
Letsholathebe added: “We also used the benchmarking strategy to see how these initiatives were implemented from schools that were performing best then like Maun SSS, Joseph College and Mater Spei College.” Moreover, she said after benchmarking, they then customised the same initiatives to their situation. She shared that turning results around was not an easy task because for starters, there should be a shared vision amongst the relevant stakeholders. Letsholathebe said teamwork, motivation and rewarding performance at all levels also proved to encourage everyone to do their level best. She praised the boot camp initiative, which is a very good strategy which can help them in instilling discipline in their students.
The Bobonong native also highlighted that the school came up with results improvement strategies and set performance targets that were transparent and achievable, hence everybody strived to achieve the set standards. Additionally, she said everybody from the school management to the students accounted for their results. She said: “Since we strategise, plan and continuously assess their performance during the year by the internal tests and examinations, we knew we would attain position one in 2021. We expected it but there are surprises here and there as most of their subjects are in position five nationally.”
Letsholathebe expressed gratitude to their sponsors, Parents and Teachers Association (PTA) and the community and district leadership for their unwavering support.
She said as a government institution they face the same challenges as other government schools such as lack of resources including limited parental involvement. She said they are a large boarding school and their catchment area covers most of the villages in North East district.
She stated that even though they are at position one nationally, now and last year, it is by the grace of God. When giving her teaching background, Letsholathebe said she started her teaching career in May 1986 at Shashe River School, worked at Tonota Junior Secondary School, Francistown Senior Secondary School, Montsamaisa, Goldmine, Ramoja and Mater Spei College among others. The educationist holds a Master’s Degree in education, counseling and human services together with a BA Degree in secondary education, all acquired from the University of Botswana.