Africa-Press – Botswana. Top achievers have potential worth nurturing but for them to succeed it will take determination and planning, self-discipline and a positive effort towards learning.
Speaking at the 14th annual excellence awards for the 2022 Primary School Leaving Examinations, Junior Certificate Examinations and Botswana General Certificate of Secondary Education in Gaborone yesterday, President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi said ‘with a positive mindset, one seizes opportunities, amidst challenges’.
Dr Masisi said positive mindset of parents, guardians and teachers was primarily important in achieving the national vision.
“As a nation, we need to nurture and build up positive mindsets of these young Batswana. Once we do that, a knowledge-based society will be an easily attainable reality,” he said.
The President said in its quest to change, Botswana was counting on the youth to change the prevailing narrative about the country’s education and its outcome. He said the education space was being reformed to promote quality education.
“For some time, we have grown accustomed to the unfortunate narrative that the quality of our education, as measured by the academic performance of learners, is not measuring up,” he said. To the 2022 exceptional achievers, President Masisi said their individual achievement made them invaluable and worth celebrating with genuine enthusiasm.
He said his presence at the award ceremony including that of parents, guardians, teachers and other stakeholders was more than just an attendance but an affirmation that they were not just paying attention to the calendar of school events but also deeply engaged whole heartedly in every step of educational journey.
President Masisi said government placed education at the top of the national agenda. He said access to basic education and training was a priority not only for government but also in the global educational agenda.
He said the first target of the Sustainable Development Goal 4 was that nation states must ensure that all children of school going age have access to free, equitable and quality based education that would leave relevant outcomes in terms of knowledge, skills, values, personal and social conduct among others.
Dr Masisi said his government’s commitment to the ideal was reflected in the second Transitional National Development Plan, which prioritised implementation of the outcome-based curriculum and promotes digitalisation of teaching and learning.
He noted that the Ministry of Education and Skills Development had engaged on a robust schools connectivity programme, which had seen the issuance of technological gadgets to most teachers and pupils at secondary schools with the view to facilitate the efficiency of teaching and learning.
President Masisi further noted that BEC had rolled out electronic marking systems which had digitalised key processes in the examinations and assessment value chain. In contributing to the aspirations of a knowledge economy, Dr Masisi said it was important for such development towards the use of ICT to be the ingenuity of Batswana companies.
He said the country’s ultimate goal was to use education and skills development as a vehicle towards attaining aspirations of a knowledge-based economy. “Our supreme vision of a knowledge-based economy should be kept alive by the type of investment we commit towards our education and societal transformation. Societal transformation can only be attained if we change our ways,” he said.
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