The Voice (Francistown)
Ofentse Thwabi
6 May 2008
Palapye — Delays in projects implementation, lawlessness and vandalism of property at some schools have rendered the Ministry of Education and Skills Development, a problem child of the government.
The Deputy Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mr Archibald Makgothi, said this at a recent Department of Primary Education's week-long seminar on statistics in Palapye.
He told education officers from all the regions that President Seretse Khama Ian Khama was concerned with the situation at the ministry.
"Our ministry is always in the news," he said. "It is either one school is burning or children have been sent home. The issues of education are endless and they are of serious concern."
Mr Makgothi said delays in the construction of the second university and five senior secondary schools, problems related to school fees and the double shift programme, recovering money from the grant-loan scheme beneficiaries and lawlessness at some schools haunted the ministry
"The president asked us why the building of senior secondary schools at Shakawe, Mogoditshane, Mmadinare and Nata has not taken place. Mind you the project was given the green light 10 years ago."
Mr Makgothi raised the government concern over lawlessness and vandalism at some schools, which saw millions of Pula going down the drain and attributed these to lack of supervision and poor parental guidance.
"The vandalism and lawlessness witnessed at some of our schools are attributed to lack of supervision on the part of education authorities," he added. "One would wonder where the authorities were when a day scholar at Lobatse Senior School burnt the hostels".
The ministry's problems have prompted it to re-strategise and improve on service delivery urgently. He reminded the participants ... "our mandate is to educate Batswana. I call upon all of you to take this as a challenge because anything that happens to your school is your business".
Mr Makgothi said the ministry was working around the clock to fast track undertakings that have been pending, adding that it has proposed a structure aimed at expediting service delivery and compliance.
He said the structure, which will have a head/super permanent secretary, permanent secretaries and their deputies has been approved.
Another endeavour in solving the problems is to encourage partnership with local authorities and parents.
"As part of the solution to the problems, our ministry has improved on the threshold of school fees. It is working on improving our relationship with the local authorities and decentralisation of collecting money from the grant-loan scheme beneficiaries."
The ministry will introduce pre-school in future. BOPA
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