Kae MaÞunÿu-Tjiparuro
OTJOMUISE – Both the Head Boy and Girl of the Mokganedi Thlabanelo High School has excitedly welcomed the donation of a printer by the Otjovahonge peer group.
“I am very happy and excited,” says Head Boy Edelbergt Thataone, 20, a Grade 12 student, adding that the printer they have been relying on has been unreliable since it has been broken and thus has been posing various challenges. Echoing his principal Uakuzako Kavari, about the difficulties they have been experiencing with their old printer that has been out of order from time and time and has since finally given in, Thataone says they has been relying on neighbouring schools for print work, and even compelled to drive to Gobabis, about 40 kilometres away for their printing needs. He says the printer has been regularly useful because every Tuesday and Thursday, they have to write tests and teachers have, in the absence of a printer, been compelled to type out the test papers, which at times they have not been able to complete in time. All this time, they have been relying on the small printer in the office of the school secretary but this does not have the necessary capacity.
The printer has not only been of use to the school staff but also to the learners in doing their various projects. “ We welcome it with a lot of excitement. I cannot express my joy with words,” appreciates the Head Girl Trasfinah Chunga, 20, also in Grade 12, referring to the more than N$30,000 plus state-of-the-art printer also echoing their endurance with the old printer. As much as both learners have a vague idea about Otjovahonge, this hasn’t in anyway eclipse their appreciation for its benevolent gesture.
The Otjovahonge officially handed over the printer to the principal in Windhoek on Monday, from the offices of Maxes Office Machines in the Southern Industrial Area in the presence of Omaheke Education Director Peka Semba. Semba assured the peer group that their gesture would not go unnoticed in view of the Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture’s Friends of Education initiative of recording various instances’ contributions to education and recognising such in one way or another at the appropriate time. He hails the donation by the group, which is not the first, as a glowing example. Semba says the school has been improving its results since Kavari assumed the reigns of principals for three to four years now, lauding the disciplinarian attitude of the principal.
The school which is from Grade 10-12 and has 686 learners this year, is situated about 40 kilometres northeast of Gobabis and as the name denotes, has been named after the later Swapo Party of Namibia freedom fighter, late Mokganedi Thlabanelo.