Deputy Minister Pamela Tshwete: Midrand Primary School media classroom handover

The Deputy Minister of Arts and Culture,
Premier of Gauteng,
MEC for Basic Education,  
Speaker of the Legislature,
Executive Mayor of Johannesburg,
Executives of MTN Foundation,
Rand Water and Rand Water Foundation Executives,
Councillors,
The School Principal and Teachers, Parents, Members of the School Governing Body,
Visiting schools learners,
Government officials,
Ladies and gentlemen.

Good Day to you all.

I am Pamela Tshwete, the Deputy Minister for Water and Sanitation, originally from King Williams Town in the Eastern Cape.

I first want to thank MTN and the school, Midrand Primary School, for making this day possible. If MTN did not have this kind of a social responsibility programme we would not be here today and there would be no Media Classroom.

This school also could have chosen not to participate in social and developmental programmes and just focus on an academic programme that produces individualistic personalities.

Secondly I would like to thank the semblance of leadership that is present here today. My predecessor Deputy Minister Rejoice Mabudafhasi, the Provincial leadership led by the Premier and the Local sphere of Government as represented by the Executive Mayor.

Thank you very much for gracing this occasion and raising these critical matters and challenges facing our country today. The challenges facing our country demand a shared, common vision and without this kind of collaboration our challenges may appear difficult to overcome.

The schools must work with local communities to provide information useful in changing the conditions under which we live. Our schools must be a training ground for leaders of tomorrow.

This means teachers must provide leadership and ensure that they guide the children and advise the parents in the most essential areas of training and education.

Currently our system of education does not provide enough engineers, doctors, architects, pilots, agriculturalists, accountants, pharmacists, water specialists and technicians.

These inefficiencies affect our capabilities to provide for our livelihoods especially food security and in the supply of water and sanitation.

Our education system should enable the community to be self sufficient when it comes to skills and professionalism. Through education we must determine our destinies and what we want to be in our future careers.

In the department we support children with bursaries to study in selected fields. This is also done by other government departments. Our children must now take courses in selected areas such as science and maths. These bursaries are aimed to support children whose academic work par exceeds the average level and those children whose parents cannot afford. We urge you to work with us and avail yourselves as part of the struggle to increase the academic status and research capacity of our country.

The doors of government are now open to all those who wish to make a contribution in developing themselves and others. It is now the time where the government directed opportunities must be seized by the young learners so that tomorrow they will be citizens properly equipped to govern and administer this beautiful country.

Parents must help children move away from drugs, alcohol abuse, bullying others, criminal element and blaming the system and demanding all the goods from others without working hard.

Baswa Le Meetse is one of our flagship programmes in the department which was launched in 2003. This programme aims to mobilise and generate interest amongst young people to participate in the education of their communities. The youth is required to participate in integrated water management, sanitation, health and hygiene related activities.

The hope is that when they reach the higher grades they will follow course streams and university or college degrees that will qualify them to work and provide skills in the management of water and sanitation. In 2013/14 financial year 51 bursaries were given to deserving students and now in 2014/15 financial year 50 bursaries have been awarded. More young learners are needed to grow this number.

In the Baswa Le Meetse Awards the department targets grade 4 to grade 6 learners in five categories, that is, Drama, Traditional Music, Poetry, Praise Singing and Poster.

The school entered for the drama and poster categories and won themselves position number two in drama category provincially and position number 1 on poster category both provincially and nationally. The school became eligible for the MTN Media Classroom which consists of 21 computers with internet connection, with scientific programmes loaded and training of five educators plus a R6 000. 00 cash prize.

We have now opened the Media Classroom and congratulations to the school for its hard work. Thank you very much to all those educators and learners who have provided leadership and made this possible.

As I indicated, since the beginning of this project 50 Media Classrooms have been handed all over the country and this is the third one to be handed to a Gauteng school.

The connectivity the school now has through internet and other educational programmes must now help the school educators to do their work better.

The school principal must be able to send critical messages to the parents whenever there is a need to do so.

Even the Ward Councillor may relay community messages through this access point to reach both the school educators and the parents of the children attending the school.

We must now see a dynamic link between the school and the society out there in terms of communication, information acquisition and dissemination.

Once again thank you so much to our sponsors MTN and many other partners who are here today. It is only when we work together that we can achieve more and with speed.

I thank you. 

More on

Share this page

Similar categories to explore