North East region schools ready for second re-opening
Lesedi Mkhutshwa | Friday June 19, 2020 16:03
Non-completing classes except for the lower primary pupils will re-open next Monday after a whole two-month break.
Moreover, all completing classes such as Standard Seven as well as Form Three and Form Five returned back to class earlier on June 2, 2020 but others were expected to resume classes on June 16.
Due to the greater Gaborone lockdown recently, non-completing classes in public schools, which were scheduled to open on Tuesday, did not resume until further announcement by the Ministry of Basic Education to resume classes on Monday.
Speaking to Mmegi on the schools preparedness in the North East region in an interview, Mokgosi said preparations for the schools’ re-opening have been made for the non-completing students/pupils. He added that they were expecting all the 84 schools to receive the second batch of students on Monday.
Northeast region consists of three senior secondary schools, 18 junior secondary schools and 63 primary schools.
Mokgosi further said that they have engaged local contractors in order to increase the number of water basins, geysers and even renovations of classrooms, laboratories and ablution areas. He further said that they have also increased the number of cleaners through Ipelegeng programme so that they can assist with cleaning and disinfecting the academic and ablution areas for both the teachers and students. Mokgosi indicted that the Francistown City Council (FCC) and North East District Council (NEDC) have deployed the Ipelegeng workers in each school according to the number of students per school.
He added: “We have deployed temporary SHE officers in every schools and they would be assisted by interns posted by the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development (MYSC) to ensure that the safety of children and teachers is not compromised”. Mokgosi said that all the returning students are expected to be wearing protective cloth masks matching with their school uniforms.
Speaking about the preparedness of primary schools, FCC senior public relations officer, Mandla Hlabano said that all the 15 primary schools in Francistown are ready for the remaining batch of students.
He said that they managed to engage four local contractors, three local steel fabricators and eight local plumbing artisans to help with the primary schools renovations.
Hlabano said that as of yesterday morning (Thursday), all the projects in different primary schools were standing at 97% completion.
He added: “These contractors work on a daily basis and we believe that on Sunday they will be done and everything will be in order when the non-completing pupils return to classes on Monday”. Hlabano also said that the FCC has deployed 926 Ipelegeng workers in all the Francistown schools including secondary schools so that they can assist in tidying the academic area.