Africa-Press – Botswana. Maintenance of wash basins put up in schools through the COVID fund has not been up to standard, says Deputy Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Education and Skills Developmemnt, Mr Simon Cole.
The wash basins were installed to improve hygiene in schools, and currently there are no remaining COVID funds for use by the Ministry of Education and Skills Development.
Updating Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Monday (04/03/2024), he said at present they relied on their annual recurrent budget for maintenance.
Mr Cole said the ministry was aware of the current status of the water basins at schools, citing that they were working on putting proposal to cabinet to fund significant maintenance throughout the country.
He acknowledged that COVID-19 has not gone away, and there was a likely possibility of another pandemic, therefore, they ought to be ready.
“As a ministry we will look back on the state of our infrastructure with regard to upholding hygiene issues,” he said.
“It’s also unfortunate the SHE officers that we had recruited were only temporary for that period.”
With the restructuring and re-imaging schools they needed to make sure that the right staff was in place. Therefore, the position of SHE officer was most likely to see the light of day under support staff cadre.
Mr Cole said it was about time education turned around infrastructure and produced a situation which was more conducive for learning and also for hygiene as well as health. He said the ministry had moved its agenda from fairly low to very high on health and safety, citing that such lesson had to be carried forward into the future.
He said he appreciated thoughts around the establishment of a fund specific for pandemics by government.
It was however sad that their infrastructure was not maintained.
He said the maintenance was a urgent issue within his ministry, including the day to day upkeep within schools, adding that they were considering hiring graduates from CITF and brigades to be part of the support programme around maintenance at schools.
On the water leakages at various schools, he said, the ministry managed to identify top 10 schools with the most expensive water bills and they issued a tender to address the challenges.
He said leakages amounted to huge cost to government, a cost not sustainable and they were putting a plan to address all the challenges faced.
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