Our Lady of the Desert toasts its successes

EDWARD BULE
Correspondent | Wednesday October 20, 2010 00:00

 

The school, which was founded in the early 50s by the Roman Catholic Church, recorded a 99 percent pass in last year's Primary School Leaving Examinations.

School head, Gertrude Ndlovu said this at a victory and prize-giving ceremony held at the school last Friday.  Ndlovu attributed the historic performances to 'cooperation, hard work, team work, good values, ethics, ethos and good parental involvement'.

For his part, guest speaker and Ministry of Education and Skills Development's deputy permanent secretary, Dr Theophilus Mooko, commended the pupils who are now doing Form One in different schools but attended the celebration in gowns.

'What you need to do is to remain focused on replicating the same success that you realised at this school when you sit for your Junior Certificate examination in 2012,' said Mooko. 

Telling the students that their future is in their hands and that they are the masters of their own destiny, he advised them to 'choose friends who value education, choose friends who have a vision and purpose about their lives, choose friends who value the fact that there are certain things that need to wait until they are done at the right time, learn to say 'NO' to any advances that contradict the values that you have learnt from your parents and teachers'.

Mooko praised the school for its performance over the years stating that during the past five years, the school's performance had ranged between 99 percent and 96 percent. He added that the school has not only become a beacon of excellence in the northern part of the country, but also in Botswana as a whole.

This he attributes to determination and visionary leadership, adding that the success of 'Our Lady of the Desert School has dispelled the myth that quality education is only found in private schools'.

The deputy permanent secretary praised the pupils, teachers, school management, parents and the local leadership for 'pulling together in one direction,' and hence the enviable record of success. He called upon all the stakeholders to continue in their effort to support the delivery of quality education to the children. Moloko further commended the school management for its ability to retain pupils. In his view, this has been possible because the school has managed to create a child-friendly environment, minimising the number of dropouts.

Emphasising that teachers at all levels are important, Mooko said that, 'I wish to point out that we need to equally acknowledge all the teachers who have taught these children all the way from the first day they entered the school system.'

Revealing that the success of the school had increased demand for the limited spaces that there are, he appealed to parents to appreciate the fact that the school could only enrol a certain number of pupils.

'We need to guard against over-enrolment at this school. If we congest this school, we will make it difficult for it to continue to deliver quality education to our children. Instead of over-stretching the resources that we have at the school, we should rather focus on replicating some of the good practices found here in the other schools,' he said.