Africa-Press – Botswana. Parents should not discourage children from studying art as it can be a major income earner. First Lady Ms Neo Masisi said this during a visit to Naledi Senior Secondary School in Gaborone, in which she was accompanied by spouse of the Swiss President Muriel Zeender-Berset, Tuesday.
The two toured the school’s art department to appreciate learners’ work.
Ms Masisi said art was not just a hobby, and there was need to support learners who took up the craft as a career choice that promised numerous future opportunities.
She said plans were afoot to elevate art in the new curriculum, and this would allow learners to showcase their talent. She expressed the wish to see learners impact society with their art.
Ms Masisi said in a changing world, there was greater need for creativity, and art had become a way of expression and communication.She thanked Naledi Senior Secondary School art teachers for continuing to nurture learners.
“They are stars and they should shine to advance developments of Botswana and the world,” she said. She expressed hope that art would in the future be a major contributor to Botswana’s development and that today’s students would be the ones to come up with creative solutions to problems besetting our ever-changing world.
For her part, Ms Zeender-Berset appreciated Naledi Senior Secondary School educators and said they played a key role in delivering quality education and motivating learners to take art and education in general, seriously.
“Education is key to development and it helps to develop curiosity to learn,” she said.
She explained that the education system in Switzerland prepared students for the future through apprenticeship which presented children from age 16 with opportunity for practical training.
She said for that reason, Switzerland did not have many unemployed youths as they had been empowered with life skills. As a person with keen interest in art, Ms Zeender-Berset described art creativity as the ability to think outside the proverbial box.
She thus reiterated the importance of art as a career choice, saying its creativity held solutions to some of humanity’s major problems.
“Breakthroughs of all kinds are linked to creativity,” she said Ms Berset said art created rounded persons and prepared them for leadership roles, adding an individual exposed to art acquired special ability to be creative and original in their thinking, which were key attributes for individual success and social prosperity in the 21st century.
For her part, Art and Design teacher Ms Olga Abotseng said their lessons encompassed application of diverse multi-media such as painting, sculpturing, printmaking, drawing, decorative art, welding and both 2 and 3D graphing.
She concurred that art was a form of expression and communication, adding the school had Special Education learners who expressed themselves well through art.
Learners presented a drawn portrait each of Mmes Masisi and Berset to the two stateswomen at the end of the tour.
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