17 Sep 2024

 In a bid to help meet pupils’ immediate needs and also encourage them to aim for the stars in their academic journey, Foreign Affairs minister Dr Lemogang Kwape on Monday donated school shoes and educational toys to Lorolwane Primary School.

Dr Kwape also pledged some cash prizes for academic excellence for pupils and teachers.

This was in addition to the 50 pairs of shoes which the school management will distribute to learners according to their needs, as well as the sets of educational toys for pre-primary education class.

Dr Kwape said he would give each pupil who would attain Grade A in this year’s crop of Standard 7s a P200 cash prize, while P2 000 was for every Standard 7 teacher who would produce over three Grade As. A teacher whose class would emerge overall best in the entire school at the end of the year would also get away with P2 000, he promised.

Dr Kwape said the pledges were meant to inspire both teachers and learners to work hard and thereby improve on last year’s 49 per cent pass rate.

Touching on an unrelated subject, he said relevant authorities had assured him that the Selokolela-Lorolwane road, which he acknowledged was in a bad state, would be graded soon to improve its condition.

Highlighting how central to the development agenda roads were, Dr Kwape said he would push for its inclusion in the next National Development Plan.

School head of Lorolwane Primary School, Mr Kenalesego Oromeng said the donation and its accompanying pledges would indeed motivate the school to up its performance. Mr Oromeng, however, also appealed to government to address challenges that they were facing, among which he cited the bad state of the road leading up to the village.

He said the road made taking up posts at their school an unappealing undertaking that results in teachers often resisting the transfer.

The school head further requested Dr Kwape to help them get their photocopying machine fixed.

He said since it broke down, duplicating test papers had become cumbersome as they had to do it in Kanye where they still had to rely on the goodwill of different people as there was no specific place that had been designated to address this specific need.

Kgosi Matlhoakgosi Matlho of Lorolwane said donations of the kind that Dr Kwape had made were building blocks to a great future for both individual learners and the wider society.

He said gestures that supported education were indeed noble, particularly as education had entrenched its place among the bedrocks upon which a satisfying, meaningful and stable life was founded.

In addition to donating shoes, toys and soccer balls, Dr Kwape also gifted Lorolwane Primary School food commodities that will be consumed during the school’s prize giving ceremony billed for Thursday. Ends