BULAWAYO’S Baines Junior School was yesterday awarded the 2019 Secretary’s Merit Award for attaining the highest standard of excellence.
The school got electronic learning equipment – 40 tablets for the pupils, a standard projector, an interactive board and a plaque – which will help it set up a smart classroom. The headmistress was given a tablet and a certificate of excellence.
The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education, Mrs Tumisang Thabela said the ministry is offering the Secretary’s Merit Award to reinforce and encourage hard work in schools.
“As a ministry, we traditionally focused on academic performance but the ministry’s thrust is to ensure that all schools offer a holistic curriculum, which is something that Baines Junior School has succeeded in doing.
“We have seen examples of the application of music, VPA, physical education, sport, mass displays and agriculture in the school and that is where we want to be as a ministry,” said Mrs Thabela.
Mrs Thabela said the digitalisation of schools was a must in a fast-changing world.
“The teachers should use the gadgets to teach smarter not harder, a projector, an electric interactive board and a plaque. This is a way of the ministry empowering the school and the pupil as it responds to the needs and requirements of the competence-based curriculum that the ministry of primary and secondary education introduced in 2015,” she said.
She challenged all schools in the district to complement the ministry’s efforts by embracing information and computer technology as both a learning area and a teaching method.
Mrs Thabela said the secretary’s merit award plaque received by the school should be jealously guarded as it is a symbol of outstanding achievement.
Today the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education will be handing over another Secretary Merit Award to Townsend High School. – The Chronicle
