Tents For Pupils' Makeshift Classrooms
Lebogang Mosikare | Monday June 22, 2020 16:27
Chief education officer for Tonota sub-district, Othusitse Namane told The Monitor on Friday some pupils would return to find tents as makeshift classrooms.
The sub-district is one of the areas that have often been cited amongst those that have acute shortages of classrooms in the country.
Namane noted that due to the delay by the Ministry of Basic Education (MoBE) in procuring porta cabins in order to ease shortage of classrooms in the region, they resolved to use tents as an alternative.
He said they are going to use three tents for Tonota Junior Secondary School (JSS) and two for Kgosi Sekoko Primary School in order to comply with social distancing protocols.
“We have tried to borrow more tents from different organisations such as the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) and Botswana Prisons Services (BPS), but our efforts were futile. We even approached the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) office to assist us with at least two tents, but were not successful (with our request) as well,” he said. He added they submitted a request to the Tonota Sub-council district commissioner’s office so that they can be assisted with more tents before schools reopen on Monday, but their efforts did not bear any fruit.
Namane said all the preparations are at an advanced stage and schools will be ready for learning in line with COVID-19 prevention regulations by Monday. He said: “We are currently doing some finishing touches”.
He stated that they have submitted a request for 96 temporary teachers to the director.
Namane disclosed that if the request is successful they would be able to deploy 58 temporary teachers in secondary schools and 38 would be meant for 20 primary schools in the region.
For his part the Regional Director of Education (North East), Labane Mokgosi said they have also not yet received porta cabins from the ministry.
Mokgosi explained that as a way of improvising they have decided to demarcate multipurpose halls in schools to accommodate extra classes.
Mokgosi added the North East region has 42,391 students in their schools and they are expecting 33,565 of those to resume learning starting on Monday. He added: “We expect to appoint 125 temporary teachers for primary, 52 for JSS and 25 for Senior Secondary Schools (SSS). The number could be reduced because some secondary schools will be on the single shift”.He said altogether they have appointed 84 SHE officers in schools within the region.