Africa-Press – Botswana. South Korea Embassy has donated 14 Samsung tablets and a smart board to the resource unit at Montshiwa Junior Secondary School in Pitsane in the Good Hope District.
Handing over the gadgets to the school on behalf of the embassy recently, director for Special Support Services in the Ministry of Basic Education Ms Motshwari Mabote said the gadgets would come in handy for learners with special educational needs.
Ms Mabote pointed out that resource classes were introduced in schools to enhance the quality of education provided to learners with special needs.
She explained that the ministry planned to establish resource classes in all schools since every school had a learner who required special assistance and extra support.
“The resource classes are meant to build capacity within schools to respond to the diverse needs of learners to provide assistance to each and every learner. This is a model class that would enhance support to learners with special educational needs within an inclusive school,” she said.
Ms Mabote said the Revised National Policy on Education of 1994 highlighted the need to strengthen the delivery of education to learners with special educational needs.
This, she said, resulted in development of the Inclusive Education Policy of 2011 which called for equitable access to education.
“We expect each school to have access to this policy and to implement this policy. The reason we talk about resource classes is because we do not want learners with special educational needs to be excluded. They have to be included because they are equal, it is just that they learn differently,” she said.
Ms Mabote added that the ministry would increase resources for the assessment of children with special needs to ensure their placement in schools where they could access resources.
“Learners with special needs require assistive gadgets to enhance their learning. Technology helps children to stay motivated during their learning and to continue exploring. It equips learners with research skills and helps teachers to adapt their teaching methods,” she said.
Ms Mabote thanked the South Korea Embassy for contributing to the attainment of government’s Reset Agenda priority number three, which focuses on the digitization of services.
Principal education officer in the southern region, Mr Faruk Maunge, said the region intended to use Montshiwa as a model school in the implementation of the policy for learners with special needs because it had a strong intervention team. He said the resource class at Montshiwa was the first in the region.
He said learners with special educational needs included those with visual challenges, comprehension, retention and writing deficits, health problems, albinism and psycho-social challenges.
“Some of these interventions that we apply have brought positive results. We have learners that managed to pass the examinations due to these interventions,” he said.
Montshiwa school head, Mr Roland Dlamini, said the performance of the school was improving after many years of bad performance.
Mr Dlamini said the school had improved from position 170 nationally in the Junior Secondary Education results in 2021 to position 89 in 2022.
He said they attained a 36.5 per cent pass in 2022 from 23.4 per cent in 2021.
Mr Dlamini said they managed to improve through teachers’ discipline and hard work.
He said they were aiming to attain higher results in future.
He said the school had an enrolment of around 700 pupils.
For his part, Good Hope District Council chairperson, Mr Fankie Motsaathebe, said education was one of the priorities for his council.
He said the council had resolved to hold education committee meetings every month to make sure that they engaged every stakeholder to improve the performance of schools in their district.
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