Central region wins Setswana literacy
Pini Bothoko | Tuesday December 16, 2014 20:18
Central region scooped nine awards during the 2014 national breakthrough fair that was held at Francistown College of Education last Friday. Other regions include Chobe, Southern, Ghanzi, Kgatleng, North East, South East, North West, Ngamiland and Kweneng.
The fair was held under the theme: “Breakthrough to Literacy: A Foundation to Learning and Growth.”
Central region scooped position one in stage 1, stage 3, written composition, material production and won the best displayed stall.
The region also took position two in pre-reception stage, stage two, as well as winning position two in written poems.
The region also won the trophy for being the overall winners for the day.
Giving a keynote address at the event was the Ministry of Education and Skills Development (MoESD) Deputy Permanent Secretary (Support Services) Leonard Muthetho.
He encouraged the Central region to hold onto the good results and produce good marks in the Primary School Leaving Examinations (PSLE).
He urged the Central region to value their breakthrough results and make sure that there is continuity of good performance amongst learners.
Muthetho encouraged teachers to go back to the foundation and teach learners to read and write as early as possible.
He said that breakthrough is not a method for Standard One only saying it should apply to the entire learning levels.
“There is no way we can expect good results without breakthrough at early stage as it is the first step in achieving proper learning and good results,” he said.
He said that a child should be able to communicate at an early stage and be able to understand oral language and translate it to reading and writing.
Muthetho said that breakthrough to Setswana Literacy is a method of teaching learners to read and write Setswana during the first year of school.
He said that the method was introduced to address problems of reading and writing.
He said that since its introduction, many children have successfully completed their first year in primary school by learning through breakthrough without any school readiness training.
He explained that pre-reading and pre-writing stages catered for assessing and building on the level of communication that learners brought to schoo,l irrespective of their language background.
He called on universities and colleges to take part in child development from a tender age to make sure there is breakthrough and that quality of education starts well.
“They should not wait for the enrolment of learners at their schools and start to judge the quality of their background education, rather take part in their breakthrough at early stage, “ he said.
Muthetho said that the fair is a testimony for the ministry and teachers to provide quality education and solicited for stakeholders support to ensure there is continuity.
“Learners at breakthrough are future potential employees. Let the schools be the learning centre because a child naturally is a learning entity taught by the environment they live in,” he said.
He went on to encourage teachers to create a learning environment wherein students and teachers can easily interact.
He further said that in an open and free environment, good results will manifest.
Muthetho said the development of the country’s economy starts with good results and they can achieve that with breakthrough.