Let's Join Hands For The Good Of Our Children

Monitor Editor | Monday November 12, 2018 11:36

This was brought about by the sad incident in which the life of a Form Three student, who had just completed his JCE in Serowe was taken.

This week’s plea is still on the welfare of our future leaders.  The Monitor last week visited Jamataka Primary School at Jamataka, a village in the northern part of the country. 

The school is said to have only nine classrooms, a situation which forced the school to put-up makeshift classrooms out of corrugated iron sheets to accommodate the increasing number of students.

The area Member of Parliament (MP), who also is Assistant Minister of Tertiary Education, Research, Science and Technology, Fidelis Molao, in an interview with The Monitor, acknowledged that he is aware of the worrisome situation at Jamataka Primary School, and quickly highlighted that while there is a shortage of classrooms at the school, pupils could not be turned away ‘just because there are no classrooms’, explaining that the school had to improvise to accommodate all the learners.

No one can argue with the area MP that students cannot be turned away because there are no classrooms, and of course there is nothing wrong with the decision to improvise to make sure that all the young ones in the village get access to education, which is a right of each an every Motswana.

The shacks or mekhukhu, built out of corrugated iron sheets, were meant to be makeshift classrooms, thus they were supposed to be temporary, while the government comes up with a plan on how to increase classrooms, and how many the school would need, but the temporary structures seem to have now been accepted as normal, considering the fact that the school has been using them for nearly five years now.

There is need for our government to review its priorities, and realise that education is one of the most important sectors that we cannot afford to ignore. It is a fact that many of our schools around the country are delapitated, have shortages of all sorts of necessities, which include books etc.

While it is the government’s responsibility to make sure that all citizens have access to high quality education, it is also our responsibility to lend a helping hand to government. 

There are a number of businesses, which have adopted schools, and as such we urge other businesses to join in, so that together we can improve our children’s learning environment, thus making it conducive for learning and teaching.