08 Jul 2024

MMG-Khoemacau Mine management has been urged to formalise their relationship with the seven schools within their area of operations and further expand their support to the entire Ngamiland region.

The regional director- education, Ms Veronica Mochotli appreciated that the mine adopted all the schools in their area of operation to foster academic excellence and support them with the necessary resources to enhance teaching and learning.

She made the remarks during the mine’s fourth annual schools prize giving ceremony at Komana recently.

“The region appreciates your footprint and feel your presence. We appreciate your invaluable support through your academic excellence awards programme in which performing individual schools, learners and teachers are rewarded for demonstrating commitment, perseverance and hard work in their work.As the ministry we request you to formalise this beautiful relationship and consider extending it to other schools in the region,” she said.

The awards categories were: most improved primary school, best overall performing primary school, standard seven teachers of the most improved school and school heads for most improved school.

Ms Mochotli said since the implementation of the programme, they noticed a lot of improvement in the schools citing that four out of the seven schools added value in their education while Komana Primary School reached the national target of 80 per cent pass rate in the 2023 Primary school Leaving examination (PSLE).

Komana School scored 81.3 per cent and the regional director stressed the need for MMG Khoemacau to spread the wings saying the partnership had the potential to turn around the education system.

She acknowledged that the mine donated computers and photocopying machines among others to performing schools.

Education, she said required collective effort citing that leaners could acquire quality education of all stakeholders played their role.

She appealed to school heads to seriously take advantage of the opportunity offered by Khoemacau to turn around their performance.

Country head for Macmillan Botswana, Mr Bernard Sechele appreciated Khoemacau for investing in education saying what the mine was doing was igniting a spark that would pass across generations.

Education, he said was an equalizer as it does not care about someone’s background, and all what learners had to do was to read and take studies seriously.

“Education can take you out of poverty to greater heights if you apply yourself and work hard and I encourage parents to ensure children enjoy their right to education,” he added.

Mr Sechele added that Macmillan, also promoted a culture of reading citing that they had donated over a million books to the region to be distributed in schools’ libraries.

The company, he said also had online courses in the compass and invited all rewarded learners, teachers and the organizers of the event to enrol with them as their donation.

Khoemacau chief executive officer, Mr Johan Ferreira said the mine was delivering on its promise of fostering academic excellence in schools.

He said they believed in grass root development hence they were catching them young to educate a workforce for the future.

He praised Komana School for performing exceptionally well citing that the result was testament to dedication of teachers and parents towards education.

Setting target and achieving it, he said was important and noted that as the mine they would continue to build a legacy and urged other stakeholders to inspire learners to do their best.

“We have laid a foundation in education which needs passionate teachers and supportive parents to thrive and I challenge stakeholders to come on board and invest in education, learners who are the future of tomorrow,” he added.

Komana School head, Ms Sophie Mogalakwe said their school outclassed other schools and attained 81.3 per cent with 37 per cent rate of quality pass in As in the 2023 PSLE results with support from the mine.

She said the school enjoyed support of resources such as Internet connectivity, computers and photocopying machine among others.

She promised to do more this year and exceed the national target. Ends