Kudos To Mogobane Junior Secondary School

Monitor Editor | Monday January 29, 2018 06:27

Mogobane JSS for many years was counted amongst the worst performing schools. The school even failed to attain a 50% pass rate year after year for a long time.

The school has many challenges, something which is a commonality amongst public schools, especially those in the villages.

The school admits students from Mogobane and surrounding smaller villages such as Lenkwana and Manogeng. Sadly, some of the students have to walk long distances to and from school, something, which is shocking that in this day and age, we still have students who walk close to 22 kilometres to access education.

The school also has challenges of both water and accommodation shortages. It is not only students who have to travel long distances to reach the  school as teachers also travel from Gaborone, Otse, and Ramotswa due to lack of teachers’ housing. The school is a good example of the popular saying, “If life gives you lemons, make lemonade”.

The phrase encourages optimism and a positive attitude in the face of adversity. The school acknowledged that they have challenges, but instead of giving up and taking the ‘there-is-nothing-we-can-do-about-it’ stance, they decided to come up with strategies, to improve their results. An outlook that if all of us practiced would have positive results.

The school decided to partner with the community and other stakeholders to ensure good results for the betterment of future leaders. The school in the recently released results, attained a whopping 70.3% pass, something which should be applauded, and encouraged. The school has turned itself into a model that other schools should follow.

It is common knowledge that the public school system has many challenges, some of which are overcrowding in school, lack of teacher’s housing, limited resources, poor working conditions, just to mention a few, but it is imperative for communities to have strong links with schools to ensure that ‘our children’ get a good education.

The partnerships, 1of course should not lead to complacency from the side of government. The very same partnerships, which have made the school a success story, should actually pull their forces to lobby government to resolve the challenges faced by schools in the country. Schools in rural areas seem to be neglected, and that is unacceptable.