President Duma Boko recently delivered an inspiring message to Maun Senior Secondary School learners, urging them to dream big and never stop learning.
During his tour of the school facilities, Boko challenged the learners to take responsibility, pointing out that it is not about what their teachers teach them, but about what they can teach themselves in close collaboration with the teachers.
“We come from same schools same as yours and from the same backgrounds maybe worse from yours, we walked barefooted to schools, we walked long distances but we managed, we survived somehow,” said Boko.
Boko noted that in spite of the circumstances which they lived in during their school days, those circumstance inculcated them to take responsibility of their own lives, future and learning.
He stated that the learning space must become a partnership between the teacher, the learner and the community. Boko highlighted that the output of the community in the school is ordinarily the Parent Teachers Association (PTA), meaning that the parents must take in active interest and part in the learning environment.
“I know there are challenges in the school, one of the places that I would want to see is your library, I want to see if you have any books, because if you do not have I will make sure that you get books, this is an initiative I began long before I occupied the Office of the President. I was donating books to schools across the country, so I am bringing it back so that I can try and resource your library,” he said.
Boko has assured the students and school management that he will bring in a team of experts from the United States of America as part of that initiative which is outside the Botswana government. He stated that he is going to bring the librarians to train the learners, so that access to learning materials is enhanced and the efficacy of the libraries is also improved.
“When the books come you must read, my best companions, my best friends are my books, my best moments are moments when I am in solitude surrounded by my books,” he said.
Boko emphasised that one of the distinguished public figures who inspired him to read the books was Dr Kenneth Koma who he met at secondary school and became a fried with. He stated that one of the things he learnt from Dr Koma was to read to understand, to formulate and to think critically, therefore urging students to develop that kind of mentality.
‘‘There is only one person in this world that you are competing with, forget about your friends and everybody else, there is only person that you should beat every day and that’s you, everyday go to sleep as an improved version of what you were before,” he said.
Boko said that he is interested in the livelihoods of the students therefore he wants to see them becoming the very best not just in Maun but around the world. He encouraged the students to follow the paths of the likes of Batlhalefi Moeletsi, a product of Maun Senior Secondary School who went on to study law at Harvard University.
Addressing the students, North West District Commissioner Thabang Waloka revealed that he was a student at Maun Senior Secondary and has now become a District Commissioner, which means that the school has the potential to produce prominent figures. Waloka also encouraged the students to develop themselves into critical thinkers and understand their career paths as early as now.
For his part, Maun Senior Secondary School Deputy School Head Kehilwe Oageng has appreciated Boko’s visit to their school. He stated that the president managed to tour and assessed the condition of some facilities in the school including the tourism department, kitchen and library.
He lamented that the school is experiencing some financial challenges for maintaining the school facilities and for running teaching and learning, but hopeful through the President’s visit those challenges will be addressed.
