Goodhope Senior to get water shortage relief
Tumelo Mouwane | Thursday November 16, 2017 15:15
Regional education director, Acronews Maseko said the boreholes will help resuscitate the school to full operation.
“It is unfortunate that the school has suffered severe water shortage since its opening in 2008. We believe that some of the woes that the school has been suffering were in one way or the other influenced by water shortage at the school. The shortage literally affected everything. The teachers were also demotivated because of the situation.
“We are hopeful that as we will now be connected to a direct water supply, the school will start to run in a normal way. All the Agricultural activities, which have not been taking place at the school will commence. The teachers will have ample water in their homes and have motivation to teach.
The ablutions will be clean and all the laboratories will work efficiently. The school will now run the way it was supposed to run,” Maseko said. Maseko added the Ministry of Basic Education has been ‘pumping’ money into efforts to mitigate the water shortage at the school, hence the drilling of the new boreholes will save costs.
“Our ministry has been pumping large amounts of money into the school in a bid to try to address the water shortage situation. Drivers were trained to interchange duties of delivering water to the school. It was very expensive for government to supply the school with containers.
We are planning to drill more boreholes in all schools which need a lot of water in the future. I am hopeful that the boreholes will save money for government and the funds will be directed somewhere else,” he said.
The 2,000-capacity school has been facing severe water shortages since its inception in 2008. In some instances, taps could go dry for months and the situation has previously caused disease outbreaks. Classes were in some instances compelled to stop due to no water. Meanwhile, Goodhope sub-district council deputy chairperson, Charles Modimothebe said the P700,000 project should be handed to the school instead of the Water Utilities Corporation to allow the school to supply itself.
“It is very painful that the school has faced the challenge over many years considering its large student capacity. Research has proven that human beings use water more than any other living creature.
“The boreholes have come when they were most needed. Issues of indiscipline in this school were perpetuated by the fact that the students and the teachers have not been waking up to a healthy environment. Our wish is that the boreholes be handed directly to the school so that it manages its water supply instead of giving it to Water Utilities,” he said.
The director of C And M Construction, Borehole Drilling, Roger Motlhaodi said the project will be completed in two months’ time. “The project will be completed at least before the Christmas holidays if things go well. We have everything set on site and it will take us 10 days to do the actual drilling and probably 20 days to connect the school to the water supply,” he said.
One of the students, Pearl Mosala said it will be a ‘great relief’ to have adequate water at the school, “We can’t wait for the day the boreholes will be officially put in operation, we will be able to bath and do our laundry”.
Meanwhile, Maseko said calm has once again prevailed at the school following Thursday’s Form 5s departure after completing their Botswana General Certificate for Secondary Education (BGCSE) exam. Maseko dismissed allegations that a number of Form 5 students missed the last examination due to an unwelcome dress code.
The school recently suffered a series of rowdy student behaviour and was temporarily shut down in September following student protests which left at least one security personnel injured.