08 Jun 2014

North West District Council (NWDC) is working round the clock to make the dilapidated primary schools facilities more habitable.

The council secretary, Mr Mzondik Moswete said in an interview that a task force was formed with assistance from the district commissioner’s office and the regional education office to maintain primary schools in the district as most of them were in a bad state.

The task force assessed schools to come up with remedial action plan to improve the quality of education. The development came after government appointed task teams in the districts whose mandate was to assess the state of affairs in both primary and secondary schools.

He said they came up with a model on how they could maintain schools facilities including the ablution blocks which were the worst. The exercise also included attending issues of shortage of personnel, purchasing of books and stationery, food availability and maintaining staff houses among others.

Mr Moswete said a suggestion was made to engage private small business contractors and also use the Ipelegeng model which is doing wonders for the exercise. He said two schools in Maun are completely maintained adding that the exercise would be extended to secondary schools.

The district has 69 primary schools and he confirmed that the maintenance is progressing well adding that currently most school kitchens are functional and thanked Mr Keith Letang, a mechanical technician from Mahalapye Sub District Council for a job well done.

Mr Moswete said they requested the said officer from Central District Council who is an expert of school pots repair to assist and in two weeks’ time 25 school pots were functional. The officer worked with two officers from North West district.

“We are very impressed with their job a most schools are using their kitchens as opposed to where the kitchens were completely not functional,” he added.

The council secretary also revealed that currently at Maun Administrative Authority, 40 pots are working while 20 are waiting for spare parts and 14 pots need to be replaced while in the Okavango sub district, 44 pots are working, three waiting for spare parts. ENDS