Union ploughs back to Intsebenziswano

Mineworkers Investment Trust CEO, Simphiwe Nanise official hands over a donation of lap tops to school principal Moipone Sam while ward councillor Nkululeko Mgolombane looks over.

Pupils at Intsebenziswano High School in Philippi couldn’t contain their excitement as they received a donation of laptops valued at more than R100 000 from the National Union of Mine Workers (NUM) through the union’s Mineworkers’ Investment Trust.

At last Friday’s handover, the union said pupils lived in a technological era and it was important to ensure they had the necessary equipment to prepare them adequately and as early as possible.

Failing to do so, would result in the youngsters having to play a catch up. Mineworkers’ Investment Trust CEO, Simphiwe Nanise, said it was an open secret that townships schools did not have enough resources and operated on shoestring budgets.

But, he said, they were expected to improve their performance despite the endless challenges they were up against. And this was one of the key reasons they had embarked on this initiative.

Mr Nanise said they wanted to see pupils who come from townships succeed in life and become better people.

He also told the pupils that life challenges and poverty should never discourage them from pursuing their dreams and breaking the chain of poverty in their families.

He told the teachers and pupils that too whom much is given, much is required from them and they would be expecting good results from the school.

“The need is great and we have to support our schools. We need to plough back to our communities and ensure that our children receive better education. We should never fail our children. We must try by all means to give these children the best education. If we want to create better leaders of tomorrow, we must create a conducive learning and teaching environment,” he said.

School principal, Moipone Sam, said it was an honour and privilege to have been chosen out of many schools across the country to be recipients of this donation.

Ms Sam said the school had one computer lab and it was not enough and this would greatly assist the school. Ms Sam said on their strategic planning they all agreed that they wanted their pupils to obtain 50 percent Bachelor pass and increase the school pass rate in the matric exams. She promised the union that the school would guard these laptops jealously.

Pupil Wendy Ndabeni said they were over the moon with excitement and this would help them to achieve better results. She said as pupils they need all the resources they could get so that they could achieve their dreams.