Celebrating a feat of moving up from 11th position in 2013 to third countrywide last year, the school at the bottom Kgale hill south of Gaborone, has declared academic war on the best performing junior secondary, Orapa CJSS. For many years now, the diamond town school has been topping the JCE results chart. At Kgale JSS victory party held at Sedibeng Lodge Friday, stakeholders vowed it could take whatever time to displace the diamond privileged school, but the staff is thirsty to occupy the top seat. As a result they have launched war, they have put all their arsenals in order for this good fight. In 2013, Kgale JSS came position 11 in the Junior Certificate Examinations (JCE). This caused a major shake as stakeholders who were fed up by just attaining mediocre rankings in the JCE, intervened. They vowed to make a drastic change, and under the able and transparent leadership of Solomon Setswe, they obtained position three in 2014. Celebrating this achievement in style, where both the teaching staff, non-teaching staff, Parents and Teachers Association (PTA) was represented, they were propelled on by a motivational talk from Bethsheba Mbongwe of Botho University. She reminded them that while pursuing excellence and being at the apex of JCE ranks, it is crucial to sacrifice and do more under the straining conditions that teachers operated in to offer an education that prepared learners for life.
Botho’s head of student research and community outreach applauded Kgale Hill JSS for the sterling teamwork that was even visible to a blind man at the function. However, she called upon all stakeholders to introspect and thoroughly assess the kind of education they wanted to give this generation of learners. While academic excellence is a good pursuit, Mbongwe repeatedly stressed that, that alone was not education enough.
