Programme Director
Premier of the Province in absentia Members of the Executive Council Members of the Provincial Legislature MTN the Sponsors
Mayors and Speakers of the Municipalities Traditional and Religious Leaders
Proportional Representative and Ward Councillors The School Principal and all Teachers of Solomondale School Governing Body and all Learners of the School Parents and Community Leaders
Government Officials Ladies and Gentlemen
Good day to you all. I must start by apologising to you all for rescheduling this event from yesterday to today. Yesterday there was an urgent Cabinet meeting that required attendance by all members of Cabinet.
Nevertheless I am happy to join you and be part of the Solomondale Primary School family now and in the Future. To you all in the house if you are happy to be here and you know that you are happy clap your hands ten times. If you are happy and you know say Yes!! If you are happy and you know say hello!!
Ladies and Gentlemen I am happy to be here.
I am happy to be here because:
The organisers and arrangers of this hand over ceremony have pulled together the best show for us all. The different Stakeholders present here reflect the entire Community of this area and carry them the hopes and aspirations of the sectors they represent. The Speakers who spoke here before me shared with us many and valuable words of wisdom that will take us forward in our resolve to better our lives.
The Coordination and Collaboration between the Municipalities, the School, the Community, the Provincial Government and the Department of Water and Sanitation in the Province and Nationally presents a solid foundation for us to move forward in the process of facilitating change in the lives of our people. Parents, Teachers, Learners and all Stakeholders present here, we have visited your Community today accompanied by MTN to hand over a Media Classroom to Solomondale Primary School.
Solomondale is a Primary School located in one of the most rural provinces of our country. In these provinces, schools lack the basic infrastructure such adequate classrooms conducive for teaching and learning. These schools more often than not lack Learner Support Material (LSM) to provide for learning areas provided by the school or chosen by the learners.
These schools are sometimes without qualified educators that offer teaching areas provided by the schools. In some of these schools, parents are responsible for the operation and maintenance budget of the school. I want to congratulate parents and teachers of this school for the role they played since its establishment in 1985 to date. As the nation education is the most essential treasure we can give to our children in order to sustain an ecologically friendly and economically developing country.
I want to congratulate you for being true to your call as parents and teachers unlike parents and teachers in other communities where education is used to fight other battles that have nothing to do with the future of the children.
My heart is indeed filled with boundless joy as I today hand over this media classroom to your school. The most important thing is that, this media classroom is not just coming free but as a reward for the hard work of the school in the Baswa Le Meetse Project. The school has been participating in this project since 2005.
Other schools in the area have been involved in this project but in 2012 Solomondale Primary School has been selected as the ultimate national winners in the country. They have won themselves this media classroom I will be handing over now. Their prize includes 20 computers, internet connectivity, science programmes for learners loaded in the 20 computers, training for five educators and R 6000. 00 cash prize for the school.
This media classroom must benefit the learners , the educators, the community and the local municipalities and government departments.
The learners must all be exposed in computer usage and skills, they must be trained to conduct research in their learning areas and be able to communicate with their parents who reside outside this community. They are not going to write letters and post them but they must just send emails.
The educators through this facility must be enabled to do their work better, communicate with parents who have access to emails, receive feedback from parents, communicate with subject advisors and they must do research as part of improving their academic qualifications. We must see teachers googling information than travelling to town in order to source information in the library.
This media classroom must be a hub of community activities over weekends and during holidays. The five trained educators must train community members in computer skills at a nominal fee to. These fees must be used for the operation and maintenance of the facility. When computers are demystified, the elderly will find it easy to use ATM machines to draw their money.
The municipality must be able to send messages to the school which the school Principal will decode and further encode through children to all residents in the area. Ward Councillors may also convene their meetings through sending messages to the school principal which will further be relayed to the children.
Ladies and Gentlemen a sponsor is person or a group of persons. In this instance the sponsor is a group of persons who are shareholders in MTN. Through persuasion by management they have agreed to annually make this generous gift to many deserving communities. If they wanted they could have taken this money to sport, music festivals, old age home or health but they have chosen education as a priority.
They have chosen education because they believe if you teach a child you teach the nation. When the nation is educated, the nation through government is better position to create a better life. People are now innovative, we have more people with saleable skills, unemployment is reduced, communication is made easy and we no longer have youth in the street corners sniffing glue and taking drugs.
Through this sponsor we can all be winners. To be winners come with additional responsibilities. The first responsibility is that we must defend our title and continue to be winners. The second responsibility is that we must defend our prize. This community has now a media classroom a facility that can make this school improve the academic performance and easily connect us with the whole world.
My advice today is that as a community we must protect and secure this facility. We must now declare ourselves the security guards of the school and the burglars in the windows and doors of this school. No thieves must undermine the progressive development MTN and government are making in this community. We must educate all our people, that this media classroom must now be a permanent feature of this school.
All those who want to learn must come here and learn. This centre must now redefine Solomondale as a centre of excellence. This media classroom must service this generation and many other generations to come. Last but not least I must thank all the teachers who dedicated valuable academic time into this project, who mobilised the learners to participate and partner with the MTN and the Department of Water and Sanitation.
Lastly let me also thank MTN for their well considered sponsorship, their investment in this community. Mr Matsomane in front of this community, this audience I want to assure you and say here and now, that you have made a lifelong investment to this community and your developmental efforts through this project will go a long way in changing the lives of the people in this province.
Thank you very much for working with the Department of Water and Sanitation in making education a priority and a tool for fight poverty and unemployment.
I thank you
