At the Ministry of Education (MoE), it seems the year 2008 has started on the wrong foot with the month of January registering four major incidents that have set tongues wagging across the country. Twenty-two Francistown Senior Secondary School students were last week sent home after they were caught "beach partying" along the Shashe River in Mathangwane village, a few kilometers outside Francistown. As if this was not enough, the following day Shoshong Senior Secondary School suspended about 200 Form Five students for causing mayhem at the school following an electricity outage.
At the Tlokweng College of Education, students boycotted classes and meals complaining about the filthy environment whilst at the Gaborone Technical College (GTC) students boycotted classes claiming that they were 'not taught' as there was an acute shortage of lecturers.All these issues apparently overshadowed one of the MoE's major achievements this week when education minister, Jacob Nkate, received 19 buses from the Central Transport Organisation (CTO) for use by some of the government-aided schools.Are all these developments a sign of a bad year for the MoE? Nomsa Zuze, MoE PRO disagrees and instead treats the recent developments "as a learning experience for us". In her view, the latest developments are going to help the MoE grow. "In every organisation there are the ups and downs". Zuze said that since the issues at the two senior secondary schools and the two colleges are not related, she was comfortable dealing with them separately. She said it was apparent that at the two senior secondary schools, the students were engaged in acts of indiscipline forcing the respective school managements to take remedial action. "Look at FSSS. Students were caught drinking alcohol and a corrective measure was employed to curb indiscipline," Zuze explained. She added that the same applies to the Shoshong Senior Secondary School where Form Five male students caused mayhem.
