As Swazi MTN celebrates 20 years of connecting the nation, one of its properties, the MTN Bushfire Schools Festival celebrates ten years since it started off in 2009

As this initiative turns 10 years, the Minister of Education and Training Dr Phineas Magagula announced that arts will from next year be offered as a structured subject in the formal school curriculum. This is a milestone given that Swazi MTN has been advocating for “systematic training in the arts made possible through a formal curriculum,” as repeatedly said by Chief Executive Officer, Ambrose Dlamini over the past three years.

The schools’ festival is jointly funded by Swazi MTN, the title sponsor, and the European Union. Every year, about 150 students participate in the festival. About 70 teachers participated in this year’s training workshop which covers different skills in the areas of arts, namely music, dance and poetry.

In 2017, the total sponsorship by Swazi MTN for the festival, which separately caters for primary and high school students, plus a teachers’ workshop, was E390 000. About E350 000 covered high schools, while the primary schools’ component, jointly funded by the European Union, received E40 000