(MENAFN- The Post) BUTHA-BUTHE -Lineo wakes up at 5am every week day before walking for three hours to get to school. Like other children in Linakeng, in Butha-Buthe, she returns home late, after another long walk.
She has little choice if she wants to attend school. The district has very few secondary schools, and the available ones are often kilometres away.
It takes close to two hours by bus or a whole day on foot to reach St Paul High School in town.
The nearest secondary school is Bokoro but the children have to walk two to three hours either way to reach there, passing through gorges and rivers.
Linakeng is some 30 kilometres from Butha-Buthe town, where secondary schools are found.
The area's 15 villages only have three primary schools.
Some say this is the reason why many teenagers from Linakeng mostly end up not proceeding to secondary school.
Those with children who walk long distances are unhappy about the conditions that the children have to endure.
'Mantšeli Mafala, whose child is doing Grade Eight at Ha-Bokoro said the absence of nearby secondary schools in Linakeng has been traumatising for her family.
'She gets home late and she is unable to do anything because she is tired,' she said, warning that failure to construct a bridge over one of the rivers posed a danger to schoolchildren.
'It is not easy to cross there during rainy days and at times she misses classes for two consecutive days. It is even harder to go to school in winter because it will still be dark even at 5am. I am worried about how this will affect her performance,' Mafala said.
She said she is forced to accompany the child in the morning. Sometimes she requests a man from her neighbourhood to accompany her when her husband is not around.
'Every time when we are both not around she has to miss school because she is afraid to go alone as they walk in scary and sloppy roads with forests and waterfalls.'
'It could have been better if they walked on a straight road not those meandering foot-paths.'
The village has two minibuses transporting people from villages to town but they often break down because of the bad state of the road.
'We even struggle with these two taxis we have due to a bad road,' she said.
Chief Mothuntšane said he allocated land for the construction of a secondary school 'many years ago' and the land was even surveyed, but there has been no progress.
Chief Mothuntšane said the place is now being used for farming as the construction of the school seems a pipedream.
He said some parents chose to take their children to schools in town or at Bokoro, forcing the children to live alone in rented houses.
'The problem is that there is no one to play a parenting role to guide the young ones when they are staying alone,' he said, adding that young girls in such situations have to constantly fight advances from older men.
'Most even got married early because they couldn't go to school,' he said. 'We are waiting on God now and maybe our prayers will be answered,' Chief Mothuntšane said.
He accused the Qalo MP, Thabang Kholumo, of failing the villagers.
'He knew about our struggles but there is no indication that he did anything to solve our problems. He failed to help us even when he was a deputy minister of education,' he said.
Councillor Tankiso Majorobela of Linakeng Ha-Mothuntšane said the construction of a high school should be made top priority in the area.
Majorobela said they approached the Education Ministry and land surveyors were sent to test the soil many years ago but there was no progress after that.
'The government changed and this affected all the progress. Things have since stopped,' Majorobela said.
He said some children have been attacked on their way to school, resulting in some choosing to abandon school altogether.
He said many parents cannot afford the M50 taxi fare needed to get into town every day.
Qalo MP Thabang Kholumo said the government 'mistakenly' built a high school for Linakaneng, over 30 kilometres away.
Kholumo said the government, when confronted about the mistake, said the officials were confused by a similarity of names between two neighbouring villages.
'I tried to correct the mistake (when I was the Education Deputy Minister) but the government changed quickly,' Kholumo said, who was deputy minister between 2015 and 2017.
He said donors visited the place but there was never progress due to instability in the country.
He said the absence of a high school had resulted in most Grade Seven students failing to proceed to secondary school, with some getting married instead.
'Child marriage is very high in this area,' he said, without providing statistics.
The Principal Secretary of Basic Education Dr Lira Khama said communities have to make a request if they need a school in their area.
When confronted with claims that the chief, villagers and MPs made the request for several years he said 'if we can retrieve information, it will be very helpful'.
A World Bank report published in 2016 says school quality is influenced by a student's geography, social status, and classroom resources.
'Almost all of the poorest-performing schools belong to rural areas and approximately 60 percent are located in mountainous regions,' the document says.
In another document published last year the World Bank says contributing factors include 'the difficulty of access to schools for children from remote (particularly mountainous) areas…that encourage early dropouts'.
'The supply of more school places would enable more children from remote areas to reach their schools, but the cost of education to students and parents may still limit the expansion of secondary school enrolments.'
The World Bank suggests that instead of building additional schools, junior secondary classes can be added to existing primary schools in mountainous and rural regions so that families do not have to pay for dormitories.
In 2007 the government established 64 combined schools to create additional space for these students.
Combined schools, as their names suggest, are schools that combine both primary and secondary schools.
'Mapule Motsopa
MENAFN30122020000229011070ID1101360818
Legal Disclaimer:
MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.